The Kangaroo Valley-Remexio Partnership

After the destruction and killing which devastated East Timor in September 1999, a small group of KV residents felt a need to help. A partnership was discussed with an East Timorese village, Remexio (a small village in the hills about one hour's drive south of Dili) and the Kangaroo Valley - Remexio Partnership was born. Eight years on (2008), we continue to have a mix of KV locals and associates working with East Timorese in Australia and in East Timor.

The KV-RP is a "bottom up" or "grass roots" approach to helping the East Timorese help themselves. We strive to assist the East Timorese achieve dignified living through health, education, justice, employment and ecologically sustainable industry. We selectively try to help in ways that may be of a low priority to the UN and other NGOs.

Rather than large single projects, we pursue small, personal and usually integrated activities. Being substantially self-funded, our material contributions are small. Instead, we rely on sharing our existing skills in projects or in day-to-day situations.

We try to foster long-term personal relationships with East Timorese people and actively encourage this approach in others. That part which is conducted in Australia is the provision of education and training to those who have appropriate interests and aptitudes for leadership and mentoring roles back in East Timor.

Much of our involvement is now outside of Remexio, in other parts of East Timor, as well as in active networking within Australia. We now enjoy ongoing relationships with numerous individuals and activities. Along the way we have tried to identify the best and worst of our respective Australian and East Timorese lifestyles, to better influence both our paths into the future.

The violent "situation" in Dili, that drastically worsened in May 2006, provided us all with significant and new challenges in safety and communication. Yet clearly, the needs of the East Timorese people became even more acute, highlighting the importance and urgency of continuing and extending our Timorese relationships.