Working together to end poverty and injustice

Angelina de Jesus

Angelina's cooperative allows women to supplement their family income by enabling them to earn more money from their land.

Angelina de Jesus is the founder and chairperson of Bolalilin Women’s Cooperative in East Timor. Set up in July 2010, the cooperative aims to help women earn more money from their small plots of land and supplement their family’s income.

Angelina, 34, is married to Cornelio, a primary school teacher, and is a mother of four – two girls and two boys. Angelina helps to support her family’s income by cultivating a two hectare plot where she grows corn, cassava and mung beans. “I didn’t just want to be dependent on my husband’s monthly wage,” says Angelina.

In 2009, the garden yielded two tons of corn. Angelina sold the corn harvest to the local market and earned US$300, an amount only enough to cover daily family needs for a year. Along with corn, every Sunday, she sold mung beans, which were priced at US$1 per kg. Her total annual income from the produce was therefore US$375.

In July 2010, Angelina decided to set up the Bolalilin Women’s Cooperative, as she believed if the women in her village came together as a group they could improve their access to markets, share knowledge and expertise, and increase their yeilds for greater earming opportunities. Each of the 15 members of the cooperative makes a monthly contribution of US50c – the current accumulated fund is now US$24. The cooperative decides what best to spend these savings on.

Angelina works as a member of the Suai Pilot Centre and encourages the women in her cooperative to learn new skills on offer in the permaculture programme, funded by Oxfam partner organisation, MCE-A. The programme’s activities include poultry husbandry, permaculture model gardens, solid and liquid fertiliser making, using natural pesticides, onion and bean growing and weaving.

Women from the cooperative can share their skills and expertise, as well as get better access to markets.

Poultry husbandry has helped the women in the Bolalilin Women’s Cooperative generate further income. In the local market, a chicken is sold for US$5 and the money goes to fund the cooperative.

Angelina is committed to building up the cooperative: “The change is now visible that women are forging unity in themselves and together they are marching on to establish a good future of their cooperative.”

• Read more about Oxfam's work with MCE-A
• Calisto and Francisca
  Oxfam is helping rice farmers like Calisto and Francisca Martins to improve their rice harvest so they can feed their family and produce a surplus they can sell for a profit.

• Domingas and Laurindo
  Domingas de Silva and her husband Laurindo are coffee farmers in a small community in Maubaralisa, Liquica District.