Our Work

Community Based Health Services

Demand for healthcare services is high throughout Timor-Leste. With this in mind, The Good Crocodile Foundation established a community health clinic in Triloka village, in the District of Baucau, in 2006. The clinic officially opened on February 28, 2007, after signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Health. In 2009, The Good Crocodile Foundation received full accreditation by the Ministry of Health in Timor-Leste for the Triloka clinic and for its mobile clinic health services. The primary clinic provides community based healthcare, medication prescriptions, health education, referrals, and home visits.

Health Education

Among the rural population in East Timor, access to medical treatment facilities is extremely limited. Therefore, The Good Crocodile Foundation identified the need to disseminate preventative health knowledge to the rural villages in Baucau through a health education program, which began in 2010. The FLD health educator visits ten primary schools and students at the CTID rural women's college to disseminate health education. In addition, the health educator provides information to patients in the clinic waiting rooms, patients present during mobile clinic visits, and to mother's during the mother's support group. Example health topics covered during the program include: hand-washing, nutrition, scabies, diarrhea, first aid, tuberculosis, tobacco cessation, malaria, reproductive health, and breastfeeding.

Mobile Clinic

The Good Crocodile Foundation recognized the need for rural community members in Baucau to have better access to the clinic’s healthcare consultation, treatment, and health education services. Oftentimes, road conditions are so poor throughout Timor-Leste, that making the trip to the clinic or a nearby hospital is close to impossible.  Thus, the clinic began to reach out to rural patients through the mobile clinic in 2012. The mobile clinic covers five villages, which includes ten subvillages, throughout the district of Baucau. The mobile clinic provides much needed medical consultation, health education, and medications. In addition, a great benefit to the elderly population through the mobile clinic has been vision screening by medical personnel, followed by the provision of reading glasses. This makes completing instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) and learning to read and write at an older age much more achievable among the Timorese elder population. The mobile health clinic is operational on Tuesdays and Fridays of each week from 9am-1pm, with a rotating schedule of villages to visit. All five villages are seen at least once per month.

Maternal and Child Health Services

The Lafaek Diak Maternity clinic opened its doors in 2014, to provide prenatal, antenatal, and postnatal care to women in the Triloka and Ostico communities. The midwives work tirelessly to provide quality healthcare services to the women and children of Triloka and surrounding villages. The maternity clinic operates Monday through Friday from 9am-5pm. In addition to providing pregnancy care services, the maternity clinic also provides family planning counseling services and contraceptive options, hosts the "mother's support group," and administers vaccines to children of the appropriate age on a designated immunization day each week. Staff from the maternity clinic hope to expand their services in the future, as the midwives continue to build positive rapport with patients in the community.

Mothers' Support Group

The Good Crocodile Foundation established a partnership between the maternity clinic and the health education program in 2013 to create a "mother's support group." The group consists of female staff members and women of reproductive age from the Triloka community. Since 2013, the number of women in attendance has significantly grown. The support group provides a safe space to ask questions related to women's health, timely health information, and a support network of women in the community. The staff aid mothers by disseminating knowledge on topics such as breastfeeding, complementary feeding, personal hygiene, nutrition in pregnancy, the birthing process,  vaccinations, and recognition of symptoms of disease in infants.

Medical Laboratory Services

Currently, The Good Crocodile Foundation is in the process of building it's first ever laboratory center. In the hopes of being able to offer better diagnostic options for the community members of Triloka and surrounding villages, The Good Crocodile Foundation plans to finish the building process in 2017. Foundation leadership and clinic staff are looking to add more diagnostic equipment to the clinic services through this new laboratory center, in order to better diagnose and treat cases of scabies, malaria, dengue, tuberculosis, and many other diseases among patients in the coming years.

Small Business Development Initiative

In 2011, FLD began a small business development initiative to help women in the District of Lautem (Los Palos) develop a business in weaving traditional Timorese tais scarves. The original group of women was made up of five war widows, who's husbands had died during the Indonesian occupation. FLD offers the women's group training in business skills, savings practices, and monetary funding for the group's capital expenses. The business is operational today in Los Palos, and has grown to financially support over twenty-five women and their families throughout the district.

Equipping Indigenous Leadership through Scholarships & Trainings

 The Good Crocodile Foundation's education program aims to provide a target population within Timor-Leste with the opportunity for further education. The scholarship program offers community members (with a focus on young people) the opportunity for a quality vocational education. The foundation offers learning opportunities through international trainers on-site at the clinic, or where staff have traveled and studied abroad, in order to gain experience and skills to bring back to the clinic and to share with the Triloka community. In addition to scholarships, workshops are facilitated by The Good Crocodile Foundation in areas of need as identified by the community, as well as hosting study tours for international education in terms of non-formal and formal education groups visiting East Timor.