CHAIRWOMEN STATEMENT
Dear friends and supporters,
The past year has seen some key developments nationally, particularly in the areas of child rights and nutrition. Back as early as 2023, Alola Foundation’s Maternal and Child Health began working with government to draft a decree law to regulate the marketing of breastmilk substitutes. The idea was to protect breastfeeding and the importance of exclusive breastfeeding which is recommended globally by the World Health Organisation for the optimal health of mothers and babies. After years of lobbying by Alola and other international organisations like UNICEF, finally a decree law was passed by the Council of Ministers in January 2023.
Now begins the hard work of ensuring that the law is acted upon and abided by. Around the same time Timor-Leste’s first child protection law was passed. The law provides the broad framework under which children will be legally eligible for protection from any forms of violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Other key developments for Alola over the past year have been the finalizing of a new Constitution for Fundasaun Alola, bringing the founding document in line with current laws regulating civil society organisations in Timor-Leste. The Alola Foundation is grateful to our board member, Barbara de Oliveira, and her awesome team at JU,S legal consulting services (https://www.jus.tl/) for their legal advice and many hours of hard work to conclude this work.
We are also proud and pleased to announce that Alola has been granted government approval of its request to continue to lease our current office space in Mascarenhas for a further 20 years. This positive development gives us the security we require in order to be able to continue to deliver our vital services to the community. We see this as an endorsement by government of the impact Alola is having in the lives of women, girls and children.
Thank you for the role that you have played in Alola’s own story to date.
With sincere gratitude and good wishes,
Chairwoman