The community from Bikeli, the Atauro Administrator and visitors from Alola, Care and Conoco Phillips gathered on Atauro Island for the inauguration ceremony on 29 May 2008. The members of the community said they were very happy with Alola’s support to restore the kinders and to provide inservice training for all the kindergarten teachers on Atauro.

The Alola Foundation is working with a local NGO, Roman Luan and the local community to repair and rebuild five kindergartens on Atauro Island to help promote early childhood education. When the kindergartens are finished, Alola will also provide training for the teachers to improve the quality of the learning experience and to promote creative developmental play.

After this we plan to renovate the volleyball court for teenagers and to promote other active sports, youth activities and to develop local talent. The community are very proud of the project and are looking forward to re-establishing the kindergarten classes. The community highlighted the importance of early childhood development to prepare their children for primary school.

Señora Natalia, the kindergarten teacher at the Makeli
kínder, said that everyone was very happy with the assistance from Alola to renovate the schools. ‘The process of renovation has been clear and straight forward and we look forward to new children’s resources and training for the teachers to increase the quality of learning in the school.’

The project has been supported through funds from Nelson
Bay Rotary, NSW and StratReal in England, which the Friends
of Alola UK facilitated.