- May 18, 2013
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- Carousel, Fund Raising, Latest Blogs, Videos, Wayne's Filming
Ego Lemos – PermaYouth
Change the World is supporting Ego Lemos with his endeavour to take young Timorese and instil in them a passion for the land and a drive to make Timor-Leste a better place fore themselves and their children. The project is known as PermaYouth.
A musician, singer songwriter and environmental troubadour Ego Lemos is a remarkable man, with a remarkable voice in more ways than one.
Ego set up PERMATIL in 2000 as a local NGO concentrating on sustainable development, working with farmers, community leaders, community groups, Government staff, NGO / INGO staff, and university and school students. Providing training, information and education, the focus is on how to protect the land and environment, to manage it and use it to improve livelihoods. All training and information provided is compatible with economic, social, cultural, climatic, and environmental conditions in Timor-Leste.
PERMACULTURE = PERMANENT AGRICULTURE + PERMANENT CULTURE
Permanent Agriculture: agriculture and animal management that improves the land, provides income and produce, and is sustainable now and into the future.
Permanent Culture: working with, protecting and encouraging a strong Timorese culture and environment, and moving forward at the same time. Working with nature and people and learning from them, not against or in competition with.
Permaculture connects and integrates different ideas and techniques of living and agriculture together: houses, water supply, health, waste management, agriculture, fruit trees and tree crops, aquaculture, rivers, forests, animals, etc. It builds on traditional knowledge and the new techniques available to augment that knowledge.
With over 250 trained members spread over Timor-Leste’s 13 Districts, it also seeks to build a national movement that facilitates the appreciation and exchange of traditional knowledge from disparate communities within the country, integrating the results into a body of knowledge that will serve all Timorese into the future.
Permatil and now PermaYouth members seek to promote the ten guiding principles of permaculture applicable to all, whether living in an urban or rural environment.
1) Take personal responsibility
2) Seek cooperation, not competition
3) See the solution, not the problem
4) Know that quality makes economic sense
5) Know that energy efficient systems make all sorts of sense
6) Work smart, not hard
7) Minimize waste
8) Work toward integrated systems
9) Seek diversity
10) Enjoy the benefits of beauty and function
Chau’u Polo – A short film made in Lospalos Timor Leste
This short film is a sensation!
We spent 10 days in Lospalos working with an enthusiastic group of young people, to build a media centre, equip it and to train them in all aspects of film making.
To train them we asked them what story they would like to tell and they came up with a positive drama based on a young boy they called Chau’u Polo. It’s about a poor smelly schoolboy who is teased at school but who later in life becomes a local hero being very successful. And how does he get to be so successful? Through wisdom given to him by a very lage crocodile who befriends him whilst fishing one day!
Okay so how do we film dialogue between a young boy and a crocodile with no special effects, in remote Timor Leste and ‘no speaka da lingo’? Simple the young people reply. We ask La Fiek (Grandfather Crocodile) to come to us and put in an appearance. So we did and so he did.
We believe this film is the first fictional drama short ever written, filmed, edited and screened by locals all in Tetun. The music is also 100% local with one song recorded on ‘the street’ outside the house we stayed in and the other written and sung by a young lad all in Fataluku. Fataluku is one of the many languages of East Timor, and is spoken in and around the town of Lospalos, in the Lautem district with about 35,000 speakers. As Fataluku is a Papuan language, it is very different from Tetun and most other languages of East Timor, which are Austronesian languages.
Chau’u'Polo – The making of a short film from Timor Leste
THE MAKING OF CHAU’O POLO – A short ‘behind the scenes’ look at the fun we had with the young people of Lospalos Timor Leste as we trained them in all aspects of film making.
The result was a 15 minute short film they titled Chau’u Polo, which as far as we can make out means something like ‘baldy or baldhead!’
We spent 10 days filming this fictional drama created and written from scratch. It’s about a poor smelly schoolboy who is teased at school but who later in life becomes a local hero by being very successful. And how does he get to be so successful? Through wisdom given to him by a very large crocodile who befriends him whilst fishing one day!
We believe this film is the first fictional short film ever written, filmed, edited and screened by locals all in Tetun. The music is also 100% local with one song recorded on ‘the street’ outside the house we stayed in. The other song is written and sung by a young lad all in Fataluku. Fataluku is one of the many languages of East Timor, and is spoken in and around the town of Lospalos, in the Lautem district with about 35,000 speakers. As Fataluku is a Papuan language, it is very different from Tetun and most other languages of East Timor, which are Austronesian languages.
Thanks so much to Paulo Almeida and Sol Nation for the use of their cool music track.
- February 19, 2012
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- Anne's Thoughts, Carousel
I dare to believe…
“I dare to believe that little old me can make a difference in the world. If I can do it…anyone can do it!”
Change the World founder and film producer Anne Tindall shares her vision for the company, the story to date and the journey still to come.
Change the World is working closely with a small community in Lospalos in Timor-Leste where the company has raised funds to build a much needed sustainability and cultural centre…to give the community a chance to make some money, create new jobs and help lift them out of the poverty cycle.
Change the World will then work around the globe undertaking similar projects in:
Nepal
Remote Australia
Africa
Haiti
Laos.
The plan is to produce an initial 6 part documentary series to be distributed globally, to share the vision and to encourage others to get off their butts and do something…anything to help make this world a better place!
- January 31, 2012
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DTour – our contribution
THE NEED
Mark Grose, Managing Director, Skinnyfish Music and Ego Lemos (Timor’s famous musician, songwriter, permaculturalist, and community development worker) had a dream to create a new annual cultural exchange between Australia and Timor-Leste known as D-Tour.
THE SUPPORT
To help them realise thsi dream and get this message out to the world, Change the World created a promotional video to help them realise this dream.
The dream was realised on Saturday 17thSeptember 2011. The launch of D’Tour has been hailed an amazing success as local Timor-Leste musician and permaculture activist Ego Lemos together with the R&B boys from the Northern Territory B2M, rocked Dili’s Mercado Lama in front of a local crowd of 3,000 on Saturday 17thSeptember 2011.
From the moment B2M arrived in Timor-Leste to meet Ego Lemos and his 200-strong gathering of Timorese volunteers to kick off the first ever D’Tour concert, a powerful connection between two indigenous groups was clearly being forged. Throughout the 5 days of workshops, school visits, cultural exchange and music collaboration – which culminated in a free concert broadcast live on national TV to an audience of over 150,000 in both East and West Timor – Tiwi Island’s B2M had their first opportunity to engage and collaborate with their nearest overseas neighbours.
Exchanging stories of trial to triumph, and of the constant need to defer to the past, deal honestly with the present, & shape the future; they discovered and explored the shared experiences of two remote communities and the potential lessons they had to offer the broader community through the global language of music. The message: Care for the Land, Care for the People, Care for the Future.
Under the stars on a warm Dili evening, Nobel Peace Laureate, Timor-Leste President and D’Tour’s Honorary Patron, HE Dr José Ramos Horta, arrived by mini-moke to officially open the event. Delivering a rousing endorsement of the event’s theme, he urged audiences everywhere, as individuals, to dare to make a difference.
D’Tour’s International Patron, HE Kirsty Sword-Guzmão, gave a welcome address and the Australian Ambassador to Timor-Leste, Miles Armitage, joined the line up of dignitaries who all acknowledged the importance of this event for both countries.
Timor Tours – our contribution
THE NEED
Timor is just a 1 hour flight from Darwin yet the reality is a world away. Travel in Timor-Leste is difficult, sometimes there are no roads and huge mountain ranges to cross. These conditions isolate communities that would benefit greatly from ‘Eco Tourism’ with ‘Homestay’ facilities. There is a real need to safely transport cashed up tourists to these beutiful and remote areas.
Dave & Shirley Carlos of Timor Tours are helping this tiny nation by bringing much needed tourism dollars through their motorcycle and 4 Wheel Drive tours.
The motorcycle tours in particular allow tourists access to pristine inland wildernesses and untouched coastal beaches. Outside of Dili the capital, most Timorese live on less than 70 cents a day and have no way of making it to the capital to search for work.
These tours bring much needed dollars into remote areas making a difference to individuals and villages few can fully comprehend.
THE SUPPORT
Change the World has supported this group by making a promotional video clip highlighting the tours.
ETWA – fund raiser for building
THE NEED
Los Palos (the intellectual capital of Timor and the heart of the resistance movement) is in desperate need for a centre where:
- Young people can be trained and educated
- Cultural and artistic activities can be fostered
- The local women can produce and sell their Tais (Traditional Weaving)
- New business opportunities such as Eco Tourism can be set up…and
- The community can establish ‘On Line’ web based media to connect the village to the world.
Timor Leste still after 10 years of freedom remains one of the poorest nations in the world, and according to Australia’s official aid agency, AusAid, life expectancy is only 60 years with half the population living on less than a dollar a day. The building of this centre in Lospalos offers a way out of this poverty cycle.
THE SUPPORT
Change the World produced this short clip, highlighting the need for a Sustainability/Arts/Business Centre in Los Palos Timor-Leste. Together with representatives from the village and the East Timor Women Australia group- ETWA, we raised $21,000 in one night to ensure the centre can be built.
Change the World is now producing a documentary film following the ‘highs and lows’ of the building process and the change that this will bring to a community in need.
Life, Love & Health – our contribution
THE NEED
East Timor is a country with one of the most appalling maternal and infant mortality rates in the world, where approximately 830 women out of 100,000 die in childbirth. Twelve percent of children don’t make it to their fifth birthday, yet they have a very high birth rate of 7.5 children per family.`
Approximately 50% of the population is under 15 years of age and approximately 80% of women are illiterate.
Life, Love and Health (LL&H) is a volunteer based, Australian registered charity committed to community development in Timor-Leste. Their grassroots projects assist the Timorese people to address their fundamental needs and aspirations as they move forward through difficult challenges to their independent future.
THE SUPPORT
During a recent visit to Timor Leste we were kindly supported by this extraordinary group so we decided to assist them in the way we know best; through the power of film.
This ‘Change the World’ promotional video clip was produced to assist them raise further funds and to highlight the work they are doing to reduce the appalling infant mortality rate in this emerging nation only 45 minutes from Darwin.