Dili, January 21, 2025 (Média Democracia) – The Association of Journalists of Timor-Leste (AJTL) in collaboration with Oxfam Timor-Leste conducted the fourth media tour of the climate justice change project supported by Oxfam Hong Kong.
AJTL President, Zeovonia F. Vieira said that media visits had been conducted to Lautem, Baucau, Ermera and most recently in Oe-Cusse, so that through this project AJTL and Oxfam had held a media briefings to identify issues related to climate change problems on women and girls including people with disabilities.
“The problem identified by journalists is the clean water crisis due to the impact of the long hot season and also people who are less concerned about the environment, so that it does not impact the lives of the community and vulnerable groups,” said the AJTL President.
She continued, the agricultural sector is currently being hit by the impact of climate change in rural areas where journalists come to cover it, so AJTL uses this opportunity to present journalists in rural areas on how to identify the struggles of women and girls to survive by walking long distances to find clean water to meet their living needs.
“The impact of agriculture for the community to get income that can help them, but the impact of climate change that occurs in the long term. We will also look for success stories of life and case studies carried out by young people and vulnerable groups, how to save clean water, so that it can help the community to be able to use clean water in close proximity, because the solution through local experts is made to help them, so don’t wait long from the government, the action of bringing clean water to the community, this is what we do.” She said
She emphasized that AJTL also gave appreciation to Oxfam Timor-Leste for continuing to trust AJTL to conduct media tours, because through this media tour it provides benefits to the community who speak up not only to journalists but also to journalists themselves to speak up so that the government can solve the problems they face.
“The principle and commitment of AJTL is to provide space for poor people who have often been forgotten by society to play an important role in voicing their rights to climate justice that we want to fight for together, and also for people affected by climate change to become increasingly vulnerable,” She said.
She added that the benefit of this media tour is that the public can feel happy because for the first time journalists meet with people in rural areas, because so far many journalists have only covered in villas to meet with community leaders. However, this AJTL media tour activity covers remote areas to meet with people who are not yet familiar with the role of journalists.
The benefits we get for example in Lore, Lautem the government itself collaborates with several media to implement a program on how to bring journalists to communities in remote areas related to the problems they face, especially in the productive sector of Lore. However, there is a lot of input in discussions that occur on social media platforms regarding information that is very important for the government to improve is the lives of people in rural areas, because this is contributed by journalists to provide information that has been forgotten by the community and pay attention to clean water problems and road damage.
The advantage is that because the national platform continues to discuss the productive sector in rural areas, so the government can pay attention including civil society also responds to this question, how journalists publish information, how the government takes funds to invest in the productive sector and also repair roads in rural areas, so that people can access roads, especially women and girls, can bring their produce to the market, this is a success for journalists because they give a lot of space to the community to speak.
This program also provides benefits for the government on how to implement climate funds in areas that have not yet received climate fund projects such as improving clean water, sanitation, roads and productive sectors, so that they can mitigate and adapt to climate change resilience in Timor-Leste.
As a representative of Oxfam Timor Leste, Adilson da Costa Junior said that he greatly appreciated the collaboration between Oxfam and AJTL, this media tour program was not only implemented but has been going on for more than two years, continuing to collaborate with journalists on how to cover based on the information that is most faced by the community.
“This project is supported by Oxfam Hong Kong’s climate change media as the most focused project on how climate change impacts communities, especially vulnerable communities in remote areas who are severely impacted by the climate crisis.” He said.
He continued, on this occasion Oxfam wanted to collaborate with journalists to explore more deeply this situation at the community level in remote areas, this media tour program was carried out in four municipalities, namely Lautem, Baucau, Ermera and Oe-Cusse.
“Journalists will cover issues of climate change impacts on people’s lives, so Oxfam considers this a good opportunity for journalists to cover and dig up important information from people in remote areas,” he added.
He emphasized that the mass media has a big role in Dili, so that much of the information that occurs in remote areas is not accessible to journalists.
“Oxfam believes that with the completion of the media tour in Oe-Cusse, it will be better to hear information directly from the community about the impact of climate change on their lives, especially on agricultural sector activities and also the impact of climate change on access to clean water, because most of the community has felt that they have used local experts to collaborate in water conservation, so that they can revive the springs so that when the long summer occurs, they can continue to use it to support their lives.” He said.
He added that on the other hand how the impact of climate change has a big impact on road access and causes erosion, this has an impact on the community, so the results of the media visit produced good reports and investigations and some important data to help the government can use this evidence as a basis for designing political programs in Timor-Leste for the community facing the climate crisis.
To further explain that Oxfam collaborates with AJTL as an allied strategy to help the government and also the community by amplifying the voice of the voiceless, they are mostly under-covered by journalists. Therefore, Oxfam thinks this is a good opportunity for journalists to make coverage to get good information used as important data for related ministries so that we can inform the related ministries about the realities faced by people in rural areas, so that people can take the importance of allocating adequate funds to reduce and minimize the impact of the climate crisis on the community.
Reported by : Nelfiano
Picture by : Nelfiano