U.S. Ambassador Inaugurates Rehabilitated
Clinic in Ainaro

U.S. Ambassador Hans Klemm, together with Vice- Minister of Health Magdalena Hanjam, recently inaugurated the Clinic Café Timor in Airacalau village in the
mountainous rural district of Ainaro. Community leaders led about a hundred villagers who came to celebrate the re-opening of the health clinic, which was destroyed by a fire in September 2006 and was rehabilitated with support from USAID’s Small Grants Program. In his remarks, U.S. Ambassador Klemm said that Clinic Café Timor is a good example of the impact USAID's assistance has had, particularly in the areas of health and agriculture: "We helped Cooperativa Café Timor produce and export coffee; and we are also helping them in the delivery of health services, especially in remote areas. We have done this in coordination with the Ministry of Health, which started supplying medicines for most of Clinic Café Timor's network of health facilities in July 2007. Starting next March, all the medicines for Clinic Café Timor will be coming from the Government instead of USAID." The Airacalau clinic is one of 11 fixed health clinics and 4 mobile health clinic services comprising the primary health division of the USAID-supported Cooperativa Café Timor (CCT), the coffee farmers' cooperative of Timor-Leste. Over 1 Million patients have been treated by Clinic Café Timor free of charge since it started operation in 2000.

Ambassador Klemm also took the opportunity to visit other USAID project sites along the way to Suai. In Maubisse, just before Airacalau, he visited the Zero Star greenhouse and cold chain facility supported by USAID’s Private Sector Development project. From Airacalau, Ambassador Klemm proceeded to Suai where he witnessed the export of cattle to Indonesia on 20 November at the Salele border. CCT has helped
Timorese farmers export almost 800 head of cattle since 2005.

While in Suai, the Ambassador also visited a food distribution site and the local office of USAID grantee CARE International, which is supporting the Ministry of Health in providing supplementary feeding to children under 5 and pregnant and lactating mothers.

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