Plan Timor-Leste researcher presents Timorese youth perspectives in Italy

Noemia Amaral at the conference

Noemia Amaral, a researcher from Plan Timor-Leste, presented the perspectives of East Timorese youth on 14 September at a conference in Naples, Italy. She spoke about the experiences of young Timorese during the country’s social, political and security crisis of 2006, as documented in Plan’s report, ‘Like stepping stones in the river: youth perspectives on the crisis in Timor-Leste’.

Noemia described youth opinions about the crisis, which caused hundreds of thousands to flee their homes and led to many divisions within society, including divisions among ‘easterners’ and ‘westerners’ and a perception by some people that the crisis was the ‘fault’ of the youth. She explained why some young people became involved in the violence and who young people felt was in fact behind the crisis.

Noemia told the conference that young people argued that the country’s leaders were behind the crisis. Timorese youth did not believe in a historical division between ‘westerners’ and ‘easterners’ and they definitely did not want this to become a bigger issue. They acknowledged that some young people did participate in the crisis, but the majority did not get involved in the violence.

Noemia said, “I feel honoured to be able to come to this conference and present the thoughts and experiences of young Timorese people during the crisis.”

She added, “we faced major challenges as we conducted this research, because it was in the middle of the crisis. But we were privileged to be able to meet many young people in various different communities and hear their viewpoints.”

The conference, hosted by the European Association for South-East Asian Studies, discussed a variety of issues relating to the Asia-Pacific region, and attracted people from many countries.

Noemia has now returned to Timor-Leste and is actively sharing her experiences with her colleagues, young people and others working on youth issues in Timor-Leste.