Raul, 2 years old, has lived in an Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp for most of his life.
Timor Leste
I travelled to East Timor in early July of 2008 to document two key projects co-ordinated by the Love, Life and Health organisation. The first was a river diversion project in the village of Lepa. During the previous wet season, the river which generally runs along side the village split due to heavy rains and washed away scores of houses. Most importantly the river destroyed a large portion of key crops. The project, using members of the local community, was to build large gabions baskets and divert the river from the village, back onto it's usual course and protect the town from another devastating wet season. It was a dire and sobering situation, and typical of other situations around Timor. However, what I found in Lepa was a case of iconic East Timorese humility. Despite their dire situation, with food and other stocks at critical, we were offered some rest and a cup of coffee.
Secondly I documented a school building project in the village of Garrianna, situated in the picturesque hills behind Liquica. The village is only accessible by four wheel drive, and while only being a relatively short distance from the town took over an hour to get to due to the road conditions, or more accurately, the lack of roads themselves. The school is nothing more than a shack with some wooden chairs and two old blackboards, with barely enough room to hold about 20 children, and caters for about 100 across year levels one to six. The books the children are using are texts from a discontinued UN program and it was estimated by one of the teachers that 80 or so children do not have supplies they need for classes. Once completing grade six the children must walk kilometres to the nearest village that has a high school. The project sought to extend the Garianna school building by adding another room to better cater for more children in the village. The sheer logistics of the project are massive, with some roads – and I use that term lightly- covered in mud and closer to 90 degrees than they are to 180. But in testament to the eagerness of the local Timorese, leaving the village we saw a large truck laden with workers chugging up the slippery hill.
While these were the projects I was sent to document, I found myself spending a large amount of time in Dili documenting the conditions within internally displaced peoples camps. In fleeing the unrest during 2006, around 50,000 IDP's sought refuge in Dili. They fled to areas in which they believed safe – in front of churches and seminaries, embassies, the airport and outside Hotel Timor. The conditions within these camps were basic at best, with food, sanitation and tents provided by the United Nations. The situations in my images from there were but a small glimpse of what was happening.
