In Timor-Leste's Oecusse District--situated wholly within Indonesian West Timor--a local NGO is boosting women's economic opportunities through its credit union members and training courses. The Oecusse Women's Support Forum (Forum Peduli Wanita Oecusse, FPWO) has established 10 credit union cooperatives that now have 300 members. A recent FPWO project funded by USAID's Small Grants Program provided much-needed financial management skills training to 50 women who are board members of FPWO credit unions.

FPWO's training aimed to improve the overall management of its member credit unions. It included sessions on bookkeeping, numeracy, business and financial management, and how to run a small-scale business. The women who participated rated the training a good success, particularly in helping them to better organize their credit unions and attract new members.

Most credit union members are actively involved in small business. They rely on the credit unions not only for the initial loan, but also for training in money management skills and support in their repayment efforts. Typically these women sell vegetables, rice, fuel, and secondhand clothes on market days in Oecusse's main towns. According to Cicilia Oki, her small business is very profitable, thanks to the start-up loan from one of FPWO's credit unions. She goes to Dili, Timor-Leste's capital and largest city, every week to buy secondhand clothes to bring back and sell in four markets in Oecusse. Oki says she can buy one large bag of the clothes for $40 and sell the items individually for a total up to four times as much.

USAID supports the work of FPWO to open the door of entrepreneurship to many women in Oecusse. FPWO's credit union members and training courses have helped improve the business environment in the district, which suffers significantly from its separation from the rest of Timor-Leste. FPWO has also helped to increase the income of these women and their families, an important part of USAID's strategic objective of accelerating economic growth in the young country.

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