“I have just learned to read and write!,” Rosalina de Jesus, 50, said proudly as she received the trophy for her team’s good showing in the annual National Quiz Show broadcast live by Televizaun Timor-Leste the first Saturday of July.

Rosalina and her two other teammates came all the way to the capital city of Dili from the village of Rasa in the easternmost district of Lautem to join this year’s competition. They’re among the beneficiaries of a USAID-supported literacy and numeracy training program who made it to the final round

of the contest conducted by the local NGO Fundação Cristal. There were two other teams from Lautem—Ililai and Daudere villages—and one team from Dili. The beneficiaries comprised four teams altogether, making for a new division in this year’s event, as the National Quiz Show used to have only students from primary, secondary, pre-secondary and secondary schools as contestants.

As Rosalina’s example shows, one is never too old to be a student and learn the basics. Like many people in Timor-Leste, where the illiteracy rate is a high 60 percent in some areas, Rosalina never went to school. “I learned to read and write by attending the literacy and numeracy training in Rasa for four months. In the mornings, we worked in our ricefields and farms, then we studied in the afternoons, from 1:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m.,” she said.

They did not have formal classrooms at their disposal, but as the saying goes, if there’s a will, there’s a way. Sometimes, classes were held at the chefe de suco’s house or, whenever there was a classroom available, at the school. Anacleto Belo from Fundação Cristal, one of the five local NGOs supported by USAID’s Small Grants Program to carry out the literacy and numeracy trainings, explains: “We provided them books, pencils and pens and facilitated the training.” Such was the adult students’ determination to learn that they sometimes brought their own chairs or mats to their classes.

During the National Quiz Show, Rosalina and the other contestants were grilled on mathematics, basic business information and general information, and passed with flying colors. Although Rosalina’s team came home with the trophy and a $450 cash prize, their triumph is easily shared by all the nearly 2000 economically active adults across Timor-Leste who have benefited from the USAID-backed trainings thus far, and who will clearly be able to apply their newfound skills in their daily lives.

PDF of Timor-Leste Small Grants Program
Literacy and Numeracy Grant Locations

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