Aileu District - Bridges to Prosperity build in Timor Leste

Dili - (26/1/10) As stated in Suara Timor Loro Sa’e Newspaper 21/01/2010; A new footpath bridge has build in Aileu District which located 62 Km south of Dili. The bridge was constructed with objective to provide access to economic development, education and health for the people in the area.

The Secretary of State for Public Works Team, the Communication Department of Prime Minister’s Office and the media has visited the project location on 19 January 2010. During this visit some observations was made with results as follow;

• · The bridge provides significant impact to community around the area, this includes: Suco Leurai which has 8 aldeias (villages) and one Junior High School, Suco Hoholau which has 6 aldeias (with total 122 households) and one primary school also Suco Mirloy which has 5 aldeias (with total 60 households) and one primary school.

• · It also facilitates the access to health. The pregnant women were transferred through the bridge by walked. The transport was waiting in the other side of bridge to transport the pregnant women to the health facility.

• · Roughly this bridge may provide access to school, health and economic development of 50.000 – 100.000 people.

The news about this bridge was broadcasted on Timor-Leste National TV (TVTL) on 20 January 2010 at 8.30pm. In his interviewed the Secretary of State (SOS) for Public Works has mentioned that the bridge is donated by Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) for the people of Timor-Leste. PB is one of the world’s leading planning, environment and infrastructure firms which based in Washington has been starting to have cooperation with Ministry of Infrastructure RDTL under the guidance of Secretary State for Public Works since 2009.

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Until now, PB has been building the same bridges around the world including in Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. In Timor-Leste, the first bridge was build in Aileu. The SOS expected that for 2010 this support can be carried on in more sites in Timor-Leste including Soibada, Maliana and Same.

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Text by FH!

Sources: T L National TV (TVTL, 20/01/2010), the voice of TL (STL. 21/01) and http://www.pbworld.com/!