Scholarships

The Scholarships Project supports disadvantaged students to pursue basic, secondary, college, graduate, and technical school degrees. The scholarships team has regular contact with students to check their progress and any life challenges that might impact on their study. This includes site visits to students’ families at the villages in municipalities. Scholarships awardees also receive “job preparedness training” which aims to prepare them to apply for jobs in their new professions.

“This training provided me an opportunity to develop my skills and gave me ways to apply for a professional job”.

Dora, scholarship recipient

Teacher Training

The Teacher Training Project involves Reading Program sharing sessions, classroom observation and administering local mentors. Alola trainers help increase teacher’s  understanding of the importance of reading to children, as well as increasing inter-teacher collaboration in supporting children in reading activities.

“The types of reading that we have learned are very useful to children in grades 1 and 2 which motivates and increases children’s love of books
and improves the reading culture.”

Reading Program teacher feedback

Mobile Library

Alola’s Mobile Library enables children to access books and develop a culture of reading with their communities’ involvement. The Mobile Library visits children in remote communities to provide access to reading and other educational activities in the afternoon (after school hours).

Program Success

The Mobile Library team have been successful in increasing children’s reading in the Manatuto municipality. The project mostly worked with community leaders and parents to assist children with reading activities established by parent and peer tutors. The parent tutors were drawn from parents of participating children while peer tutors were higher grade children who were selected by teachers to help the young ones to read during afternoon sessions in the community. To follow up the pre reading test that was conducted at the end of 2018, the project conducted a final post reading test to 1033 grade 1-6 students (girls: 446 and boys: 587) in June 2019. The post test result showed children’s reading scores increased on average 44% (from 39% pre-test to 83% post-test). A graduation was celebrated and Certificates of Appreciation were awarded to 49 parents (F: 41 female and M: 8) and 165 peer tutors (girls: 121 and boys: 44).

Community Based Preschool

The Community Based Preschool project was established in 2016 and provides children aged 3-5 in remote areas with quality early childhood education and care programs. The preschools are community home-based and centre-based, and operate in remote areas of Ermera and Viqueque.

Children attend preschool for an average of 9 hours per week, which is facilitated by trained facilitators with various activities. The facilitators are committed to providing play based learning that recognizes all children’s capacities to succeed, and supports the development of positive natures for creativity, problem solving and independence.