Laletek Project Final Evaluation
The Laletek Project is a two-year project (March 15, 2010 - March 14, 2012), funded by the Untied States Agency for International Development's (USAID) Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation and Catholic Relief Services Timor-Leste program (CRS/TL). It has been implemented in partnership with DJPC Dili, in 22 aldeias in six sucos in the capital district, Dili. The Laletek Project's primary goal is that opposing groups in targeted aldeias reduce violent conflict with each other, to be achieved through its two strategic objectives:
- Opposing groups in targeted aldeias develop healthy relationships with each other.
- Opposing groups in targeted aldeias collaborate non-violently to manage and maintain existing, new or reovated local infrastructure.
The Laletek Project has continued its success since the last evaluation. In terms of impact, five out of six communities surveyed for this evaluation said that Laletek had helped bring peaceful change to their communities. Of those five communities surveyed, there were no reports of anything other than minor disputes, mostly of a domestic nature, in their community in the last six months. Only one of the communities surveyed, Fatuhada 02, has continued to experience conflict. Nevertheless, they also said that there has been a lot of progress towards in peace in their community after years of conflict.
Overall, 107 people out of 115 (93%) focus group participants and nine out of ten key informant interviews with community leaders agreed that there are more positive relations between opposing groups at the end of the project. When asked if they had experienced conflict in the last six months, while out of 11 people in Fauhada 02 reported that there had been conflict, of the remaining 107 people in the other five communities surveyed, 98 per cent stated that they had been conflict free.
Two communities throught that peaceful change in their community as exclusively a result of Laletek's programs, while the others said it was a combination of Laletek and Church, Government or other NGO support projects of the community's own initiatives. The fact that some communities claimed the credit for peacebuilding in their aldeias, even though they had not shown the ability to resolve conflict until Laletek's intervention, is also positive as it indicates ownership of the process. All communities surveyed in this evaluation, however, acknowledged the crucial role of Laletek. As one community leader described it, "They showed us the path".
