PDM-TL's Project Blog is Changing Locations!

As of today, Peace Dividend Marketplace Timor-Leste's project blog, www.buylocalbuildtimorleste.blogspot.com, is moving to a new web address - BuildingMarkets.org/blogs/timor. Keep up to speed on the doings of Peace Dividend Trust not only in Timor-Leste, but across the globe, as the site merges project blogs from PDT's other marketplace projects, Afghanistan and Haiti.

Click here to check it out!

"Buy Local. Build Timor-Leste" Marketing Campaign Odds and Ends

The team at Peace Dividend Marketplace Timor-Leste (PDM-TL) welcomes a new member into its folds as the Marketing Associate, Mr. Miguel Alves. Mr. Alves joined PDT just before Easter and has already been responsible for coordinating various activities that will be seen across Dili in the coming weeks.

Miguel Alves, PDM-TL's new Marketing Associate.

A few weeks ago, a new billboard has been erected in Metiaut, Dili, visible to all those who are traveling from the center of the city out towards Cristo Rei and Areia Branca.

The new "Buy Local. Build Timor-Leste" billboard in Metiaut.

If you're interested in learning a little more about the PDM-TL project, catch Peace Dividend Trust on the local channel TVTL. The program will feature PDT's Deputy Director Ilidio Ximenes as he introduces PDT's activities and engages in a discussion on private sector development with Mrs. Florentina Smith, Director of Industry for the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce and Eduardo Belo Soares, owner of the successful carpentry outfit Bainuaga. It will air next Monday 19 April at 6:30pm, don't miss it!

The "Buy Local. Build Timor-Leste" marketing campaign is made possible by the generous support of the Arsenault Family Foundation.

Entrepreneurial Spirit and Success in Bobonaro District

Josefina Vicente of Maliana, Bobonaro could be called the quintessential business woman. With an entrepreneurial spirit and $300 in capital, she opened up a small business in 2001, just two years after Timor-Leste voted out their Indonesian occupiers, selling gasoline, cigarettes and clothing racks to the local community. With profits on the rise, she made an investment on a dump truck which entered her company into the construction sector. As her business grew, it began to incorporate water supply and drainage systems into its repertoire of offered services, thus morphing into the company now know as JEDOVIONA. Perhaps the pinnacle of her construction enterprises' success was the win of a Government issued tender valued at $2,660,000 in 2007. 

The PDM-TL team now finds Ms. Vicente in Maliana running both JEDOVIONA and Tansos Hotel, a 12 room complex that she created with profits from her 2007 success. In an interview with Matchmaking Associates Ilidio Ximenes and Brigida Soares, Ms. Vicente spoke very highly of the services offered to her two companies by Peace Dividend Trust and expressed her interest in collaborating with PDT in the future. The PDT team in Bobonaro, when approached by international travelers, includes Tansos Hotel on the list of comfortable accommodations in the Maliana area, generating a high level of business for Ms. Vicente. The hotel staffs 8 employees, four men and four women.

Peace Dividend Trust is currently being funded by AusAid, the Canadian Embassy in Indonesia, the Arsenault Family Foundation, and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.