Vanuatu postponed : Upcoming projects

Unfortunately our proposed trip to Vanuatu this week has been postponed because we couldn’t obtain the correct visas. Unfortunately Vanuatu change the visa rules on April 12th resulting that it is now much more difficult and time consuming to get a volunteer visa.
Many thanks to our teachers Julie Walsh and Cheryl Nelson for volunteering to go to Vanuatu, and we do regret that we couldn’t get the visas in time . However we expect that the project will still go ahead sometime , possibly later this year.

Other new projects we are investigating.
East Timor:
Judith Charnaud who is a member of my Rotary club, has lived in East Timor for the past 14 years, in a very remote area called Oecusse . This is a small part of East Timor which is not actually attached to East Timor but rather it is situated in Indonesian West Timor ! . It is an very poor area, but also a very pretty area in parts. For some time now we have been talking to Judy and John Corney from the Epping Rotary Club, about a SewAID project in Oecusse, and planning is progressing for this to be in April/May 2019. This project will be teaching a variety of sewing skills, including school uniforms, dressmaking, school curriculums, and perhaps some Days for Girls. Suitable basic accommodation and working rooms are available and everything will be arranged for this project. This will be a very interesting trip, and I have great memories of our visit there a few years ago. We will need 4 to 6 volunteer teachers , and so we invite volunteers from our data base to register their interest now.

Solomons
The small group of women that we taught in March are very anxious for us to go back with a larger team of teachers in March next year. This trip is to be at the time of the International Women’s Day as they are planning to have a big celebration there at that time. Vera taught Days for Girls sewing last time, but this time they want to learn dressmaking and other items which they would like to sell. Similar to what we have taught in Cambodia. The project is on Noro , and there is good accommodation and support provided by Soltuna , the large tuna factory there, which is supporting our project. So again we are interested to hear from our volunteers who would like to go on this trip
Photo is from Vera’s classroom in Noro in March.

Other Countries
We have also been asked to teach in Kirabati and Tavalu , which are both small Pacific island countries. Tavalu is north of Fiji, and Kirabati is North from Vanuatu – and near to the Somomons.
We are just gathering details on these projects and more information will be available soon

Then we have also been invited to do teaching project in The Congo in Africa. This is a more challenging project due to the high costs of getting there. We are working with Lucy Hobgood-Brown who is also in my Rotary Club and Lucy has several active projects in the Congo which she visits every year; and for more details of Lucy’s projects please visit her website www.handupcongo.org

So lots of interesting projects in the melting pot. Do keep checking our website from time to time for updated information.
regards Tony
tonyc@sewgroup.com
Ph. 0414 801 888

This map shows where East Timor lies just Northwest of Australia and the insert shows East Timor in purple and you can see the little enclave of Oecusse situated in what is Indonesian West Timor and separated from the main East Timor.