Advice and tips for volunteering in Timor-Leste

If you want a different perspective on life—and a way to make a real contribution—Timor-Leste is a remarkable place to volunteer.

I spent a year living in Dili, the capital, volunteering with a local NGO, a government department, and supporting several small businesses. It was an unforgettable and deeply rewarding experience. Volunteering in a country very different from your own isn't always easy, and it's not for everyone, but it can be genuinely life-changing.

This episode draws from my own experience, and from conversations with locals, expats, and other volunteers.

I answer 1. Why Volunteer in Timor-Leste? 2. Which organisation to volunteer through? 3. Which organisations to volunteer with? 4. Advice for those considering volunteering 5. Impact and Legacy – What Difference Can You Actually Make? 6. Reverse Culture Shock – Coming Home Can Be Harder Than Leaving

More information on volunteering in Timor-Leste - https://exploringtimor.com/discover-what-you-can-do-in-timor-leste/#volunteer

Website - www.exploringtimor.com

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Books - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D82D3TBJ

Transcript

Jonty: 0:06

Bondi. Welcome to exploring Tim Este, the podcast that talks about Southeast Asia's best kept travel secret. I'm your host Jte, and I'll share firsthand insights, expert interviews and practical travel tips. Whether you're a traveler, a cultural lover, or just curious about places rarely covered in the mainstream. You're in the right place. Let's explore two more. Less day.

0:31

If you're looking for a different perspective on life and a way to make a real contribution, Timor Lesser is a remarkable place to volunteer. I spent a year living in Dili the capital, volunteering with a local NGO a government department, and supported several local small businesses. It was an unforgettable and deeply rewarding experience. Volunteering in a country very different from your own isn't always easy, and it isn't for everyone, but it can be a genuinely life-changing experience. This episode draws on my own experience and from conversations with locals, expats, and other volunteers. I'm gonna break it into six questions to answer. Number one, why volunteer in Timor-Leste two, which organization to volunteer through? three, which organization to volunteer with? Four. Advise for those considering volunteering. Five. Impact and legacy. What difference can you actually make? And six, reverse culture shock. Coming home can be harder than leaving. So number one, why volunteer in Timor less day? Tim Oeste is one of the youngest countries in the world and still developing its institutions, systems and infrastructure. There are many opportunities for skill volunteers to make a meaningful contribution, especially in areas like education, health, agriculture, governance, and community development. Volunteering assignments vary widely. Some last a few months, others several years. Increasingly there are remote or hybrid options available, so you can support from overseas or spend some time in Timor and spend time at home. Depending on the organization, you may receive support with travel, insurance, accommodation, and living costs, or be expected to self-fund and organize everything yourself. Regardless of the model. Volunteering and team will give you a new perspective, challenge your assumptions, and allow you to play a small part in the country building its future. Number two, which organization to volunteer through. So you can volunteer directly in Timor-Leste, but it's probably gonna be quite hard. There's lots of logistics and bureaucracy and things to manage. So most people who are volunteering will do it through an organization and they will partner with a local organization. Now many governments back volunteer programs funded by their foreign affairs departments to promote soft power. And those are good organizations that generally well established with a track record for volunteering but they do tend to require you to be a citizen of the country if the organizations are government funded. Now, this is an exhaustive list, but it's quite a long list of various organizations that can help support you with volunteering in Timor less day. So to start with, the Peace Corps, this is for American citizens only. Now all the positions are based outside of Dili, generally in remote rural locations, with around half the roles focused on teaching English and the other half on community economic development and youth development. They spent a few months learning local language tetin Although some places, they don't actually speak Tetin, they have their own language as well. Local dialect, and the volunteers will be living with local family. So this is very much at the extreme end, of volunteering that you're in a remote, local community where pretty much nobody is like to speak much English peace Corps have been operating in Timor Less day since 2002. Volunteers do two year postings in country as standard They have about 40 volunteers in country and they bring people in once a year. As a cohort, you have to be solo. So generally most Peace Corps volunteers are fresh out of university Some people later in life do it, but generally it's one of the kinda younger volunteer communities. They do have quite a lot of rules. They are not allowed to drive a car or a motorbike in Timor-Leste or a scooter, but they are allowed to ride bicycles, which I feel would be far more dangerous of riding a scooter. Slightly different model compared to some of the other volunteer organizations. But Peace Corps have an excellent reputation. They have a lot of support for their volunteers both people in country. And they also have a regional base in Bangkok that supports the Southeast Asian region now for New Zealanders like myself, who are either citizens or permanent residents, volunteer service abroad is the organization to go for. They've been operating in Timor, Este also since 2002, and they have assignments for specific roles to apply for, which are typically 12 months. But the length varies and there are some hybrid roles available. The vast majority of their roles are in Dili, although they are starting to have more roles outside of the capital. They have staff base in New Zealand and also in-country staff who provide extensive support and company partners can come with volunteers. Volunteer service abroad is aimed typically at people later in their career. They may have retired or looking for a a me career break, they typically have between six and 12 volunteers in country and VSA will cover accommodation, insurance, medical flights, and electricity. And also you get a monthly expense allowance. So it shouldn't cost you anything to be in country. Obviously you're not earning a salary, but all your costs are covered. Now Australia has a similar organization called Australia Volunteers International, A VI. And they have a similar model in terms of specific roles to apply for they're aimed again at people later in their kind of careers. Their roles are typically nine to 15 months in duration, and they again, also have a mixture of in-country and hybrid opportunities, and most of their roles are in dili. And you may be able to bring accomp partners and they also have a similar number to New Zealand in terms of volunteers. In country, they get the highest expense allowance, but they also have to organize pretty much everything themselves, so they have to organize their own accommodation. Whereas VSA will organize accommodation on behalf of their volunteers, and Peace Corps will organize things as well on behalf of their volunteers. Now for Japanese, there's the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, and they deploy what they call Japanese overseas cooperation volunteers, so JOCV. And those typically are skill professionals between the ages of 20 and 39, so probably comparable, maybe or slightly older than Peace Corps, but younger than VSA and a VI. And they're doing two year assignments and they've been in Timor Lesso since 2010 and up to 2023, they'd had 129 volunteers in the country over the previous 13 years. So that's 10 a year on average. And they focus on agriculture, tourism, health and social welfare and education and sports. And most of their volunteers are dilly based. There a surprising number of Koreans in Timor-Leste. It's on the same time zone, and the Korea International Cooperation Agency, Quaker they operate a thing called World Friends Career. This is for Korean citizens only, and they've been in Timor since 2005, and they have volunteers in Dili and other municipalities and typically have one to two year assignments. United Nations volunteers is open to any nationality. And this is the UN's Global Volunteer Program, which runs under the un DP UN Development Program, and that's designed to bolster peace and development across 130 countries globally. And their assignments are between six and 24 months long. They also are paid. Now you don't get what you would get if you were doing the job as a job, but you certainly get a lot more than you if you are volunteering for some of the other organizations. So UN volunteers is an option and it's seen as a bit of a gateway into other UN organizations, if that's of interest. Now in Australia there's also an organization called Palms Australia, which is an independent NGO, and unlike the others, the volunteers are usually based outside of Dili. It's been in Timor less, say, since 2002. They advertise specific roles, which are typically one to three years long, and you are expected to do either more self-funding or there'll be less covered. Again, as a charity the other organizations are generally government funded between sort of 19, a hundred percent from governments, so they can be a little bit more generous. There may also be some opportunities with local NGOs. Few of the better known ones are Malo Timor, who do health sector capacity building blue ventures, which focus on marine conservation. The A Lola Foundation, which was set up by the wife of the current Prime Minister, and that focuses on women's rights and maternal health. PERMA Tower, which is sustainable agriculture, and CNC, which is a Timor Coffee Cooperative, and they sometimes look for volunteers to assist with marketing or training. Also, Timor-Leste is a very religious country. 98% of the population are Catholic, and so there are a number of religious. Organizations like Catholic Relief Services or Jesuit refugee service, or Sally Sessions of Don Basco who also may provide opportunities for people to volunteer in Timor. So that was an overview of some of the organizations you can volunteer through who will help support you volunteering a team or less day, but they don't volunteer generally with them. Apart from those last local NGOs I mentioned, they will connect you with local communities or local organizations to volunteer with. And those local communities and local organizations are driving the kind of roles that they're seeking. So the idea is that most of those organizations will have a partner organization. So for example, VSA, the New Zealand organization that I was, volunteering through, they had a partnership with Ham Nasaa, which was a local Timorese, NGO and Ham Nasaa needed certain skillset. And so they developed a assignment description jointly, and then VSA would then advertise that. I applied from New Zealand for the role and then got that role in Timor. So that's the way it should work, it's based on local needs as to what they want rather than being imposed from externally. So it's important to think about the organization you are ultimately gonna volunteer because that will actually make quite a big difference to your experience in Timor less estate. So consider who your partner organization could be. Some options are there's international NGOs, which would be like Oxfam. UN agencies. Unicef. Local NGOs, ham, nasa. You could have a government department, the Ministry of tourism, or local communities, organizations, or schools. So there's quite a variety of different organizations you may be working with. Now here are six things that you should consider when you're thinking about the kind of organization that you want to volunteer with. And you should ask these questions of the volunteering organization to find out what the situation is.'cause it's all very specific to the role and the opportunity. So number one is language. So English is widely used in international and un settings. Tetin is the main language in local NGOs, schools and government departments. So that will have an impact on your duration, which is point number two. So how long do you wanna volunteer for? Generally, the longer the better.'cause you get to build the relationships and you get to. Be more useful because they know what you can do and you know where the needs are now. At least six months, I'd say is the minimum for making a meaningful impact. A year is great. Two years even better depending on obviously how you are finding the situation. But from a partner organization perspective, they see quite a lot of volunteers. And if they're getting quite a lot of churn of volunteers, that's not necessarily the best thing for the organization. It might be a good thing for the volunteers because it's quite experienced being in Timor, but for organizations they tend to like a longer placement. And so when it comes to language, if English is your primary language and you haven't really got very good language skills, then you might be best in an organization if you're gonna be there for a shorter period where they speak English predominantly. If you are good at picking up languages, and I'd say Tetin is a relatively straightforward language, that's something you can consider. But if you are in a local NGO school the day-to-day language may be tetin. So it's quite a bit of a bar to approach at the beginning. That's where the likes of Peace Corps and some of the other volunteer organizations, they will provide language learning training for you because it is important to speak the local language. Question number three to ask is around capacity versus capability building. So are you providing hands-on. Help, which is building their capacity or supporting their capacity, or are you mentoring others, which is around capability. Capacity is good for a short period, but when you leave, you obviously take that capacity with you. Whereas the idea around building capability is it lasts beyond your time in the organization. So ideally, it's very much focused on capability building. From my perspective, I feel that a combination of the two is the ideal because you can help build capability through some of the capacity work you do. And it is, depends on the situation you're in, it can be quite hard to just do mentoring all the time. It's quite nice to actually get your hands dirty and do some of the doing as well. But that's something to consider about the role you're taking on and how much of a focus there is on the capacity, which is filling a gap versus the capability which is building the capability of the organization. Question number four to ask is around the partner organization, their past experience with volunteers. So has the organization worked with volunteers before? The organizations I work with, they haven't. I had a huge amount of experience with volunteers and so there was a bit of a learning curve where some of my friends were in organizations where they've had a number of volunteers over the years and they definitely had an easier induction process. And then people just have a better idea about what volunteers can do. So that's a good question to ask. Question number five is you are fit and they should be done really by the volunteering organization, which is do your skills and experience match the role and local context? So do you have what they need to help? Now, often they might ask for relatively high levels of skill, but when you get there on the ground, you'll find that you're gonna be doing some pretty basic stuff just given the level of maturity in a lot of organizations in Timor. So you've gotta be willing to maybe do the big picture strategic stuff, but also do some of the practical hands-on work. Is adds valuable in terms of building capacity and capability in your partner organization? Final question number six is who is your key contact? So will you have a mentor or a counterpart you can work with on the ground? The assignments that tend to go well, you have a very highly motivated and committed partner person on the ground who you work with on a day-to-day basis, and you're really upskilling and working closely with. The ones that don't tend to go so well are the ones where there isn't a clear accountability or somebody that you're specifically working with that you can get a bit lost in the organization. Now section number four is some advice for those considering volunteering. So I've got five pieces of advice around this. Number one, be clear why you are volunteering. It's not a holiday and it will be tough at times. Number two is the recruitment and deployment process can take a long time. It obviously depends on the organization situation, but it'll allow at least six months. So consider how that fits with your life plans and any decisions that you need to make. Consideration number three is organizations do a good job of preparing you for the reality of the assignments, but it's one thing to read, hear about something and another to actually experience it. Certainly my experience with VSA, we did a very thorough briefing session in New Zealand before we went to Timor and there's a lot of information, but it's not until you're on the ground that really the sights and smells and the noises and it's a different kind of experience. So yes, you can prepare to a degree. But ultimately you just have to embrace what happens.'cause it is what it is considering Ocean number four, if you're going with a partner, which. Some organizations allow and some don't consider what they will do if you're not both volunteering full-time. Although I have to say, if you just doing the shopping and washing and life admin in Timor can feel like a full-time job at times. It is useful to have if you in a partnership, to have one of you with a little bit of capacity to do some of that life admin. Although there is a number of expats in Dili, it's not a massive hub, and so you should consider what your partner may do if you might be busy and fully committed, engaged, doing the volunteering. But if a partners sitting around at home bored, then that's not necessarily gonna work out for the pair finally, just be aware that everything takes longer and is harder to do in a developing country. So patience is required. Section five, impact and legacy. What difference can you actually make? So when people ask about volunteering, the question of impact always comes up, and that's rightly so. there's a lot of discussion in development circles about volunteerism or the idea that people flying in to help without understanding the context. The last thing you want to do is feel like you did more harm than good. So what does meaningful respectful impact look like? So first of all, you need to understand your role. You are not there to fix anything. You're not there to save anyone. You're there to support, listen, and share skills, ideally in a way that continues after you leave. So impact could look like training somebody in the organization so they can build their skills and experience going forward. Helping building a system or a toolkit that gets left behind that's useful to the organization, contributing to long-term goals, even if your part feels small at the time, being present. So reliable, respectful, and being patient and legacy is subtle but real. So you may not be able to build a school or transform an entire organization, but you might help a colleague feel more confident. You might show a different way of solving your problem. You might open a door for someone. And just as much Timor less day will leave a legacy for you in how you see the world, how you relate to others, and how you define what matters. Other ways to leave a positive legacy include handover documentation for your replacement. I know when I was in my volunteer organization, they'd had a previous volunteer, but they'd lost. All the materials that volunteer worked on. So that's a real shame and a waste of some of their time and resource. So making sure that what you do will last, you can continue to offer mentoring or support remotely. So this is one of the things I'm doing with this podcast is I've now left team or less day, but I'm still keen to contribute and support team or less day as a tourism destination. And you can also share your experiences to inspire others. Advocate for Timor-Leste, or raise awareness of the country's needs and strengths. I'm sure my friends and family would have known very little about Timor-Leste and now they probably feel they know quite a lot about Timor-Leste. Have you heard about me talk about it for the last couple of years? So in short, you can make a difference, but it starts with humility, listening, and a long-term mindset. And finally, something worth considering before you volunteer is what's gonna happen after you volunteer. So reverse culture shock coming home can actually be harder than leaving. One of the things that often surprises volunteers is that returning home can be more emotionally jarring than arriving in Timor less day. it's called reverse culture shock, When you first arrive in Timor, things are unfamiliar. They're sometimes frustrating, often beautiful, but you expect the experience. You should be in the mindset that you're doing this thing and you're prepared to adapt. And after a while you should find your rhythm and you might even start to feel at home. And then at the end of your assignment, however long that lasts. Most people come back to their home countries and it can be a bit disconcerting. You may feel a little bit of a place in terms of your friends and family haven't had that experience. It's quite hard for them to relate to that experience if they haven't. Visited countries like that or gone through a similar experience themselves, you may be struggling to reconcile the privilege and abundance at home with the hardship and resilience you saw in Timor. So I certainly find in New Zealand life is very comfortable. It is very easy compared to life in Timor. Timor, life was hard. It was easier for me as a volunteer with the support networks that I had, but it was still harder than anywhere else I've lived. And what I had was, nowhere near as hard as what the locals have to go through. It is give you a very different perspective on things and that can be quite challenging your, your values and your perception of things you may miss, the pace of life, the community feel, or the sense of purpose you had while volunteering. So again, life New Zealand is great, but it's definitely not as exhilarating as life in Dilly. Every day there was something, I just walk along the streets and there was something interesting or exciting or just that caught your eye, whereas I don't get that same kind of feeling at home. And it may make you question what comes next. So personally, professionally, or philosophically. As I said, coming back to New Zealand was quite a jolt. You want to tell people about your experience, but actually most people are not that interested. It's similar if you've done lots of traveling that you'll find that. You think this is this amazing travel experience. I wanna share this with others. And most people, they can't relate to it. It's not something that particularly interests them. So that's, you just have to accept that's the case and move on and not force your keyboard stories or people. There will be some people who are interested and obviously you typically out volunteering with other people who've also left Timor. And so you can share experiences with them. And there are still people back in Timor that I stay in touch with. So a few bits of advice just to finish with. So give yourself some time so when you get back, don't just jump into the next thing, but have a little bit of time to reflect on the experience you've been through and think about what you're gonna do, going forward. Stay connected with other return volunteers. There's often alumni networks that exist. Personally I found it very helpful to write, a diary and I also write a blog. Jt travels.com is my blog and I've written a number of posts there about life and Timor less day. And it's a good way of kind of processing the feelings that I had in country. And then if volunteering, spark something in you consider what other roles you may be able to do. So there might be roles in international development or community work or cross-cultural engagement, and that could be in your own country. So you can, volunteer at home or look for other volunteer opportunities overseas. And that's certainly something that I've been looking for is I've had this amazing experience in Timor it's hard to go back you can't repeat things, but you can maybe do something which gives a similar life experience. So hopefully this podcast has been useful for anybody considering volunteering in Timor less day.

Jonty: 21:51

Thank you so much for listening to exploring Timor Less Day. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps more people discover the show. If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at exploring Timor lessDay@gmail.com. Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.