Friends of Suai

In 2006 the Friends of Suai received a request from Ergilio Vicente to provide video equipment to his organisation the Suai Covalima Youth Centre. The Friends of Suai agreed to provide $15,000 in funds towards setting up a youth video training group in Suai for the purpose of developing educational video production skills in the district.

Jen Hughes a local filmmaker had been working with the Friends of Suai since 2001 towards this and had consulted with Ergilio about it in 2000. It wasn’t until Ergilio attended a video production workshop with Oxfam that he realised the potential for video to help him with communication in the district as well as develop much needed skills and work for  youth in Suai. Jen put together the equipment parcel and travelled with the Co-ordinator of Friends of Suai, Pat Jessen to Suai in February 2006 and gave the first workshop to the 9 young people in the photograph above. Ergilio was the only person experienced with computers and one  or two of whom had never held a video camera, sat at a computer or touched a mouse.

It was in collaboration with Ergilio that this website Suai Media Space was set up in late 2008. There is more about Suai youth here and  a section dedicated to the activities of the Suai video training group named YoMaTre on this website and you can read more about it here.  Some of the videos, stories and photography produced in the first workshop in 2006 and subsequent workshops are also in the Youth Media section of the site here.

In 2008 the group won a prize for their educational video about AIDS at a film festival in Dili. Unfortunately the film is too long to upload to the website.

The setting up of the media group and this website led to Emanuel Braz, (then of  the International Centre for Journalism), becoming aware of the start up media group. Emanuel decided then to make Suai one of the towns for further media development through the setting up of an Uma Media or Media House and journalism training funded by USAID. By the end of 2009 the satellite dish had been installed at the Suai Youth Centre with links to the Friends of Suai Community Centre. This meant then that Port Phillip had a broadband connection with Suai that revolutionised our communication. The new journalists are now uploading stories to timortoday.com. Read more about the Media House initiative here.

Previous to this Portuguese Telecom had an office in Suai, which was busy, expensive and unreliable. A house of viruses.

In late 2009 free social network software became available and Jen started up the suaimediaspace.ning.com social network to assist the people of Port Phillip communicate with people in Suai. The reality is that the social network is being used by people in Suai to keep in touch with each other – within East Timor and elsewhere in the diaspora. Many people are living and studying overseas. They are also using it to display their culture and do all the things everybody does on social networks – upload photographs, videos and music. As at January 2011 there are 172 members ( & growing) and conversations take place in Indonesian, English and Tetun.

In 2009 the Friends of Suai funded a photography workshop with Melbourne photographer Richard Jones in Suai, that resulted in two exhibitions of photographs. One for a conference in Dili and for the Connections Across the Timor Sea Exhibition in the St Kilda Town Hall in May 2010 as part of the 10 year Anniversary Celebrations. You can see some of the work here in the Suai Youth Section of Suai Media Space.

Egy has sent through photos of the satellite dish that has brought broadband access to the youth centre in Suai and a media house dedicated to regional journalism thanks to ICFJ. Egy in pink T Shirt with various others he has brought into the photo without giving names.

Global Voices On-line has published an interview with Jen Hughes the writer and documentary-maker behind a our social media project and Suai Media Space in English and Indonesian . Check it out! We are very happy because it is growing our audiences and that is the dream of the youth of Suai – to have their voices heard all over the world.

ENGLISH: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/15/east-timor-suai-media-space-challenging-the-digital-

INDONESIAN:  http://id.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/134/

I have been in Suai for just over a week now running workshops to prepare some of the youth to upload their stories on sms. I have been working at the Youth Centre with Annie Sloman who is fluent in Tetun and who has media and performance training. We have been focussing on basic photography and story writing for the web. The students are writing in Tetun which is an oral language so this is presenting them with some difficulties. Some of them only had their first computer training the week before so it’s a big leap for them.  We selected the first stories by allocating topics that would help to elucidate the identity of Suai and themselves.

The big news is that Emanuel Braz came down to meet with the Egy, of YoMaTre and Simao and Alberto of the Community Centre and the Friends of Suai in Suai and Pt Phillip (Pat Jessen) to say that the sponsors have agreed to fund the Media House in Suai.  The documents have not been signed off on yet but when they are it will mean a difference, not only to the people of Suai but everybody in the district will have greater access. The Community Centre and the Youth Centre will probably open up Internet Cafes which will provide an alternative to the only Internet Cafe in Suai which is currently monopolised by Timor Telecom, (where I am posting from now).

I’m leaving on 3rd June for Suai to work with YoMaTre. We will be discussing this website and where and how we are going on from here. We will be arranging a launch date too.

Apart form the normal planning and discussion I will be working with Annie Sloman, ex Bibi Bulak and community arts worker and YoMaTre. We will be workshopping story telling skills by critically examining our video footage and our photographs and figuring out what stories they tell about us. We will be working together to produce some work for the launch of Suai Media Space. In mid to late June we will be working together on broadband from Dili, so keep checking in to find out more.

Emanuel Braz- one of the movers and shakers behind the Uma Media House Project is in Melbourne at present so we met up and he’s confident YoMaTre will have an Internet connection within the next couple of months! YayH! He will be coming done to Suai in June to meet with the Suai mob and we will be connecting with him in Dili.

That’s Emanuel that Marsha’s leaning on, on the right at METAC 2 years ago.

Emanuel has expressed interest in blogging the Uma Media House story and he’s going to introduce me to Abe Barreto well known Timorese blogger and story-teller from Suai – so stay posted for that too.

Jen

The first Regional Media House has been set up in East Timor to cover the Districts of Baucau, Lautem and Viqueque. Now, thanks – in part – to the presence of YoMaTre and suaimediaspace, the Regional Media House project team have put Suai on the list for investigating the feasibility of placing one in Suai.

Many friends of East Timor know Emanuel Braz through his work as Co-ordinator of ‘Friends of Bacau’, as well as for his regular presence at gatherings in Melbourne relating to East Timor. Emanuel has been working in East Timor on media development with the International Centre for Journalists since 2006. Emanuel saw the suaimediaspace website and discovered YoMatre, the media group set up in Suai with funds and training support from the Friends of Suai. The Project Team had not been planning to open a Media House in Suai but have now put it on the list for consideration.

Baucau was the first of five media hubs planned for at the district level, to foster community media development and increase the flow of news and information to and from the districts. According to the Project Team it is expected that at least one other Regional Media House will be set up in the western regions of the country in 2008. Indications are this will be in Suai where the community is disadvantaged by its isolation and lack of Internet access. Its feasibility will depend on further funding and co-operation with Timor Telecom in Suai.

The International Centre for Journalists through the Special Projects Team of the Timor-Leste Media Development Institute (TLMI) in partnership with four national journalism associations is implementing the project.

“The Regional Media House Project will be funded in its set up year by the Strengthening Independent Media Program in Timor-Leste (SIMPTL). It is foreseen that in future Media Houses will be supported and funded through national media fundraising initiatives”. (Fact Sheet SIMPTL)

The Regional Media Houses will offer both professional and logistical support to district-based media outlets and journalists. It will provide training for district journalists, foster new media development initiatives in the area, provide a focal point where local radio stations can go for technical support, link local media to capital media and provide local journalists with access to the Internet and a phone line. Providing low cost local Internet access for the local community through an Internet café is also a possibility.

Emanuel said they hope to link the five houses via the Internet so “there can be a constant flow of information and news around the country”. At this point it is “very expensive but hopefully it will be more affordable towards the end of the year as we hear rumours Timor Telecom may open up for other internet service providers to operate in Timor”.