Jill’s first blog entry

Dear Readers of the HIAM-Health website; welcome to Jill’s first blog ever!!!

This has been a long time coming; the site and the blog, but thanks to my good friend Robyn Pickrell and James at 3C Management, that day has finally arrived. I hope you enjoy reading the information and stories about this organisation and help to spread the word of our work and commitment to this country. 

I am going to use the blog to keep you up to-date and share with you the ups and downs of our daily life at HIAM-Health. 

But first a little about my background and briefly how I came to be here:

My name is Jill Hillary and I was born in Perth, Western Australia.  I lived the first 18 years of my life in the Scarborough Beach area. Started school 1956 at Hinderwell St School, Scarborough; Grade 4 moved to Wembley Downs Primary. At that time we lived in Cobb St, Scarborough; Churchlands High, my first year was their first year. Moved to Geraldton, WA in 1968 with my family. Returned to Perth 1973. 

I have 4 children now aged between 26 and 34. 

What motivated me decide to do what I’m doing now:  Between the ages of 40-45 saw the passing of several key people in my life. They were far too young to die and this started me thinking seriously about myself and the purpose of life. Questions like; what is God’s plan’ for us?; if I were aware that I was dying and analysed my life thus far would I be satisfied; if I was being held accountable for my time here on earth would I pass the muster. The answer of course was no. So what could I do to make this world a better place for me having been born? There is so much sadness in the world. I wanted to right wrongs; help people to have a better life. So I started to incorporate volunteer work in the area of ‘community health’ into my normal work life.  The training that I received in this service would later prove to be invaluable to me. 

In April 2004 I came to East Timor (Timor-Leste) as a self funded volunteer to see if I could help.  My children had all flown the coop and I was now free to pursue my volunteer work out in the developing world where I felt that I could really make a difference. Timor-Leste was a country only an hour’s flight from Darwin, who had suffered terribly and I wanted to help. They had undergone, horrendous situations over the past 450 years and was now having a difficult time establishing itself as an independent country. 400 yrs colonisation by the Portuguese; 12mths occupation by the Japanese WWll (loss of between 40,000 -60,000 lives); 24 yrs of brutal occupation by the Indonesians (loss of 200,000 or more lives).  All this had taken its toll on this small country of less than a million people.   The countries infrastructure was all but gone. Illiteracy was huge. There were little or no health services available. In 2004 population of under<5yrs was approx 164,000 of which 46% were suffering from malnutrition. There was no way this new nation was going to get on its feet without a lot of help. 

After 6 months here and out of funds I returned home Oct 2004. But could not get the country out of my mind or heart so applied to AVI (Australian Volunteers International) for financial support and returned June 2005. 

Since then I have worked to build a vibrant National, Local NGO. Developed health education programs and combined this with supplementary feeding. We are tackling the problems of undernutrition through education. 

Some of the challenges here:     Working in the heat/humidity combined with mosquitoes; working in a cross cultural environment; capacity building in a low skilled, poorly educated adult population and missing my family to name just a few…. 

Rewards:             Being part of the solution not the problem; actually being involved in helping a new nation to develop; witnessing what you are teaching being used and passed on to others; being excited about the beginning of every new day. 

My Pearl of wisdom is: Don’t ever underestimate the power of one. To say ‘what can I do I’m only one ’, is a cop-out statement. Just makes life easier for you, no one else. 

So onto the first major event only 3 weeks before we moved into our new centre:

While sitting on my bar stool sinking a few VB’s at the Dili Club; exhausted from preparing the Malnutrition Rehabilitation & Education Centre for occupation; I was listening to a conversation about the Tour de Timor . This was to be a bike race halfway around Timor; happening from the 22 Aug for a week and cyclists are coming in from all over the world with their support teams.  It was the pet project of the President of Timor-Leste, Jose Ramos Horta and was to be part of the 10 year independence celebrations. 

Anyway they were say that that the organisers had all these internationals coming in and could not find enough accommodation.  So the little wheels in my head started to turn with new found possibilities of bringing HIAM’s need to the world.  It took me to the following Thursday to track down who I needed to talk to and the result of that was we were now sponsor’s of the ‘Tour de Timor’.  

We had the pleasure of accommodating the team from Singapore (8)

The four Cyclists were: Alexandra Toh Mei Ying; Anina Boshoff; Jasmine Wong Wai Yen; Ting Jun Zhang .  They are also The Chain Reaction Project girls (TCRP).

The guys who accompanied them were: Grant Knisely – videographer; Scott Woodward – photographer; David Flood – Bike mechanic and general support; Ben Martin – friend and fellow rider.

They were a beautiful group of people; easy to accommodate, extremely interested in Timor-Leste and just a delight to be around.

Email from TCRP,

 Thank you so much again for letting us into the HIAM Health world before and after the Tour de Timor. The rehabilitation centre was a real home to us during this time and we know that it will be a wonderful home to all the parents and children that spend time with you from November onwards. 

Thank you for your warm welcome and thank you for inspiring us with your enthusiasm and positive attitude.

Since arriving back in Singapore, many people have asked us to pin-point the highlight of our time in Timor Leste. Of course, the Tour de Timor was gruelling and memorable, but we are all in agreement that giving the sports watches to your staff and confirming our financial commitment to HIAM Health was the highlight of our journey to Timor Leste. More than anything else, listening to Rosaria speak about the centre, Timor Leste and the meaning of independence put our race and our fund-raising efforts into perspective and made every inch of every day of our bicycle race meaningful and worthwhile.

Kind regards

Anina

Thank you for taking the time to read. 

Cheers for now and God Bless

Jill