Kids Ark

Kid´s Ark is a project in East Timor that is sponsored by ARMS. It runs both a preschool and community health project, and is involved in outreach programs into nearby village communities.

Soraya Nepomuceno formally worked for YWAM East Timor and for a short while was the sponsorship manager at the ARMS National Office. Soraya returned to East Timor to begin the work of Kids Ark in June 2003.

 Donations are tax deductible,
 

Kid´s Ark Preschool

Based in Hera, about 20 minutes drive from Dili Kids Ark provides a preschool program for the children of poor families living in the area. This preschool program is funded by donations and about 50 children attend classes 5 mornings a week.

Preschool is one of the most important building blocks in a child´s education. The concepts that are learned in preschool carry on through to other areas of education. In East Timor there is a big need for the establishment of well presented quality preschool programs. Kid´s Ark is one such program.

Kid´s Ark wants to give the children of East Timor a great start in their education. Their preschool curriculum is taught in the two main languages if East Timor, Portuguese and Tetum, and the children love coming to have stories read to them in their own language, to play games and to sing songs. Kid´s Ark has also established an outreach preschool program in Sidara, a small tribal village close to Hera .

Over the past few years Kid´s Ark have been bilding a Primary School at Hera. Stage 1 was completed in September 2007 and houses Offices, three class rooms, a teachers´staff room and tiolets. Stage two is under construction and is expected to be finished in late 2009. Updates on the progress of the construction project can be found in the news items below. Donations towards the project can be made through our secure site.

Kid´s Ark Clinic

The Kid´s Ark Community health clinic is run by a Brazilian nurse named Branca. The clinic is appro ved by the East Timorese Department of Health, but receives no medicines or resources from them.

Every day mothers and their children come to Kid´s Ark seeking Branca´s help with all kinds of diseases and ailments. Branca treats her patients with kindness and also trains the mothers in how to better care for the medical needs of their family. Health education classes are run and the health program are being run in conjunction with the preschool. Branca also runs a clinic in Sidara.

The Sidara clinic building was built by the village people and was recently opened by the Minister Of Health. The work of the Kid´s Ark clinic will grow as more staff and volunteer teams are recruited.

At the present time the clinic is strategizing to meet community needs that have been recognized through a recent health survey that was done by a team of highly trained Primary Health Care professionals from Adelaide.

ARMS has also provided the clinic with a microscope and sent a medical technician to East Timor to train Branca in how to recognize, prevent and treat malaria; a disease that is very prevalent in and around Hera.

ARMS is supporting Kids Ark in the following ways.

Raising funds for the construction of the Preschool center and Primary School in Hera for the work of Kids Ark.
Providing staff support and medical resources for the work of the Kid´s Ark clinic.
Child sponsorship support.
Recruitment of visiting teams.
Building the Kids Ark Preschool / Primary School Center in Hera

Further information about Kids Ark can be found at the website.