DILI, 10 july 2023 (TATOLI)-Its roughly 104 people, who depend their daily lives on sand collecting as one of their main incomes, have benefited from support from a local NGO, namely ‘Asosiasaun Dalan ba Naroman’ (ADBN), the executive of ADBN reported.
The Deputy director of the association, Jerónimo Fernandes, said ADBN is supporting the local community, which is working across the river to collect the sand to sell to the people who need to build houses and any other infrastructure.
“ADBN raised an initiative to help the sand-collecting community in Dili get income to respond to their daily basic needs. We are writing a proposal to apply for public subsidy to support the local sand-collecting community,” Fernandes said to Tatoli in an exclusive live streaming interview in Farol, Dili, on Monday.
The support program provided by ADBN to communities, according to the Fernandes, is composed of working items and self-protection equipment such as scoops, nets, and others, including helmets, romping, maskers, and so on.
“We provided those items to support the sand-collecting community. During the COVID-19 situation, the community lacked daily income,” he said.
ADBN is also intended to empower the local community to effectively work on sand-collecting activities to develop infrastructure sectors.
Mr. Fernandes said ABDN observed this after offering support to the local 104 communities. The community was able to improve its daily income, solve the problems it faced, buy food, and send children to school.
The communities that are mostly passing their time working across the Comoro River are from several areas comprising Bebonok, Madohi, and Manleuana.
So far, ADBN has received public subsidy from the Civic Society Support Service and Social Audit (SASCAS, acronym in Portuguese) program in the amount of $15.000.
It is known that ADBN always provides proposals to apply for any subsidy provided by international NGOs or any charity and also from government programs provided by public subsidy to support private sectors or any Timorese association.
“ADBN also shares information with local communities about not throwing rubbish into the river. We also take out weekly cleaning activities in the river,” he concluded.
Journalist : José Belarmino De Sá
Editor : Rafael Ximenes de A. Belo
