A medal ... and it's pretty fancy

Leanne here. I had a fabulous experience on Tuesday - attending the Kelvin Club in the city for a Medal of the Order of Timor-Leste ceremony. President Jose Ramos-Horta presented the medals to 26 Australian/Timor friendship groups, along with some individuals and the College of Eye Surgeons.

The medals themselves are quite beautiful (check out the photos) but the speech he gave was amazing. It was truly fascinating to hear first hand stories about the support that Australian individuals and organisations provided to him personally and to the independence movement in Timor-Leste. So many people in the room had truly done amazing things.

So I felt so lucky to attend. It has been a very rewarding experience to be part of Friends of Baucau for the last 5 years on behalf of our neighbourhood house … supporting on the ground projects led by locals in Timor including supporting a women’s shelter, local schools and kinders, community arts initiatives, natural disaster recovery projects, micro-business programs and other women’s empowerment programs.

And did you know you can contribute too? Just buy the Friends of Baucau coffee from Juliet at the milkbar (or us) … and all the profits go straight back into these types of super initiatives … Friends of Baucau is a volunteer organisation, so the money really is channelled straight back to the Baucau community.