Imagine a primary school with 122 kids trying to study in open shacks, tumbledown buildings, no toilets and not even a tap for washing hands. The desks and seats are in poor shape and there's not nearly enough for the kids. That's the situation at Sulilaren Primary two hours drive west of Dili in Timor Leste. 
And Rotary Keilor East is doing something about it, combining with other Rotary and aid groups. The $90,000 project in Bobonaro District involves getting a replacement school built, with four classrooms, a teachers' room, five toilets, tap-water and new desks, chairs, exercise books and pens. Half the funding has been raised already, mainly by the Build It Well charity.
Timor Leste is the poorest country in our region. It  knows that  better education - especially for girls - is the key to development. It wants more kids to get schooling and stay at school longer, but the budget for education isn't big enough to make that a reality.
The Australian-based groups lending a hand with Sulilaren Primary includes volunteers from Spend It Well, which gets schools built efficiently and cheaply; Donations in Kind (West Footscray) which recycles donated furniture and equipment; Rotary Foundation which helps fund the container shipments; and Keilor East and other Rotary clubs. 
 "When we work together great things happen," says Keilor East Rotary's president David Dippie.  
Pictures: Top - the original school shack. Middle: First renovations
Bottom: Renovations well  under way