Hatubuilico Parish and Clinic
Many local people rely on subsistance agriculture and the small income possible through involvement in coffee production. In recent years, environmental degradation, including soil erosion, has proven to be a problem for the community of Hatubuilico. A request was placed with Palms Australia for a volunteer to work with the local community to raise awareness of sustainable practices to preserve the environment and ensure the ongoing sustainability of their agricultural lifestyles.
Hatubuilico also hosts a small clinic, which provides health care to a population of about 6,000 people. At present the clinic is staffed by a single Timorese nurse. In rural areas such as this, communities are often unable to travel easily to major hospitals and are reliant on such clinics to provide a wide variety of health services. A volunteer nurse was sought to assist provide proper health care to the people and educating about health and hygiene.
Mim Buchhorn and Damian Rake
Palms Australia recruited Mim Buchhorn and Damian Rake to fill these positions and work with Timorese counterparts for the benefit of Hatubuilico community.
Mim Buchhorn is an experienced environmental engineer, who has worked on water management projects in the Newcastle and Hunter regions. She also has significant experience in communicating about environmental issues in Australia.
Damian Rake is a registered nurse with a broad range of experience in urban and remote Australia and overseas. Damian’s experience in remote Western Australia and Northern Territory, as well as Papua New Guinea, Peru and Bolivia, mean that he is well equipped to understand the specific needs of remote and developing communities.
Palms Australia and Hatubuilico community believe Mim and Damian will contribute to positive sustainable development for the services and people of the region. You can help us achieve so much, by using the donation form on the right of this page.
Growing in understanding
March 2, 2012
After a few bad wet seasons, many people here still receive World Food Program aid to supplement the vegetables, corn, beans (and occasional meat at festas). Cases of severe malnutrition amongst children under five still regularly present at the clinic, contributing to the high rates of infant mortality in the area.
Hunger is not a new experience. Many of the 250,000+ Timorese deaths during the Indonesian occupation of 1976-1999 were caused by famine, as people were denied access to their farms or held in internment camps for long periods. Their stories are full on, and we have to constantly remind ourselves of how far these people have come, and just how resilient they are.
This is the first time most people here have had regular access to a nurse who has benefited from a good medical education, and clinical practice in organisations that take professional development seriously. A world away from the health care system he now finds himself in which, frankly, has some large components completely missing. So no surprises, there’s a backlog of medical issues. And we have a lot to learn about how and why Timorese access (or choose not to access) care.
Unsurprisingly, the mental gymnastics of ‘thinking and planning ahead’ does at times feel like an irrelevant pursuit here – not yet really part of how things are done. A contributing factor to this may be the ‘loss of agency’ we sense that some people feel – which could come from 400 years of Portuguese colonialism and a brutal 25 years of Indonesian occupation.
We take solace from Palms’ philosophy to take time – learn the language and build relationships – to better understand the very different culture in which we now operate in, before rushing in.
Try and appreciate that if ‘improvements’ were easily made they would probably have been achieved already –maybe other factors are at play. Observe the community’s strengths and seek to work-in with the positive things that are already happening.
People here teach us a lot about deriving simple enjoyment from just being together. It’s rare to hear kids arguing, they roam the valley, free range playing, giggling and laughing. People, in general, appear to have an amazing capacity to accept what life’s circumstances bring.
Damian Rake and Mim Buchhorn, a nurse and environmental engineer respectively, are volunteering in Hatubuilico with the support of Palms Australia and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). A longer version of this story is available here.
Our most recent update from Fr Adriano:
“The community is happy to work with Mana Mim and Maun Damian and really appreciate their work.
Sometimes I see they live so simply, even more than me – a priest. They are a hidden witness and a great blessing for Palms.”
The challenges of life in Hatubuilico, Timor-Leste
February 14, 2012
The vast majority of people are subsistence farmers – we reckon less than 5% earn a salary. Vegetables sell for very little and the average daily wage for rare construction work is $3.50. Makes you wonder how people participate at all in the cash economy – and from what we can see people don’t, really.
Click here to read the full article
A non-trivial matter
June 9, 2011
An environmental engineer and registered nurse respectively, Mim and Damian have answered a request made of Palms Australia to work with Hatubuilico Parish and Clinic to meet their environmental management and health goals.
Click here to read the full article
More articles
Write to Mim and Damian
All fields marked with * are required. Please do not use this form to ask volunteers about volunteering. For more information on the opportunities available, contact the Palms Australia office using our online enquiry form or call (02) 9518 9551.
By entering your email, you will kept informed of any new information about Mim and Damian's placement, including commUNITY newsletters and appeals. You will not receive other communications from Palms Australia unless you have communicated with us in another capacity.
Donate Online
Donating online offers you a completely secure and easy way to support our work.
To donate to support Mim and Damian's placement in Hatubiluco, please use the form below. If you would like to make a general donation to Palms Australia, please use our dedicated donation page.
Make a recurring donation
Make a one-off donation
Recurring donations will be deducted on a regular basis, until Palms Australia or Paypal is notified to stop. Upon clicking "Donate", you will be forwarded to an external site, hosted by Paypal, to securely transmit your credit card or paypal account details. Please check the form on the next page to confirm the transaction details are correct. In this instance, Palms Australia does not handle your credit card details but will receive notification of your contact details.
Your donation will be placed towards the costs of sending and supporting Mim and Damian as a volunteer in Hatubiluco. In the event that monies are raised above the amount required, Palms Australia will use them to support the placement of other volunteers. For more information contact Palms Australia.
If you have selected to alert the volunteer of your donation we will send them a note with your name, email and (if selected) the amount of your gift.
Donate by Post/Fax
You can download and print a donation form and return it to us by post/fax with your cheque, money order or credit card details.Donate by Phone
Or call us on (02) 9518 9551 to make a donation by phone. THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR WORK!Timor-Leste
Population: 1,108,777
Area: 15,007 sq. km.
Median Age: 21.5
Literacy: 58.6 %
Languages: Tetum, Portuguese, Indonesian, about 16 indigenous languages
A brief history of independence. mid 1500s – Timor colonised by Portugal 1859 – Portugal cedes West Timor to the Dutch 1942-1945 – Japan occupies East Timor 28 November 1975 – East Timor declared independent from Portugal 7 December 1975 – invaded and occupied by Indonesia. It is estimated that 100,000 to 250,000 were killed [...]