We launched the competition on Wednesday the first of October 2008 by sending an announcement to the ETAN mailing list and starting to hand out and stick up the flyers.
Our Tetum flyer*
We've had a great response so far with a lot of people calling up and emailing saying they want to enter. Journalists have been the most common occupation but we have had interest from office workers, students, theatre troupe members, waitresses, security guards and even a few people who are looking for work.
Their first question is normally "does it need to be history or can we write in fiction?". As I alluded to in an earlier post, unfortunately our project name has a bit of a historical ring to it so this confusion is understandable... We're still in the market for a new name if anyone has a good suggestion.
We are in talks with a few different organisation that may be able to help us promote this nationwide including CARE (who publish the excellent Lafaek magazine that gets sent to every single school student in the country once a month), a World Bank program that has connections to youth centres all over the country and two different national journalist associations.
Local journalist Steph March who reports for Radio Australia came and interviewed me the day we launched the competition and this report hit the airwaves this morning. Probably not terribly useful in getting the word out to potential contestants, but will be quite useful for finding funding sources once we move on to the printing stage.
In addition to interviewing people that we are lending books to, I'd like to start interviewing writers too. I'm off to Indonesia tomorrow or the day after, but I'll try and get an interview with an author up here soon.
If you'd like to help us promote the competition, please email me at johnholdaway (at) gmail (dot) com.
* I stole the image of the reading crocodile (well, technically it's an alligator) from the website I acknowledged on the flyer. I tried to contact the guy who drew it but he never responded... Oh well, we are a non-profit organisation, hopefully he won't mind.
PS - If you are the guy I stole the image from, let us know if you want us to stop using it and we'll find a new one.
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9 comments:
Dear Istoria Timor,
My name is Octavio Souza, I study at some univenrsity in jakarta.
I've save a mail from John Holdaway@gmail.com about this competition, i like it so much.
My question is may I sand my Istori by email? please send at getlux89@yahoo.com. Thanks...
maybe i want to promote to all my freiend in all studantes TL in indonesia
Hi Maun Octavio,
Yes, you can send your story via email and please do promote the competition to your friends who are studying in Indonesia.
Thanks for your interest,
John
Dear Mr. John,
How are you???
Oy, I would like to find how is the progress of the Writting Competition, are there people have submitted their ISTORIAS or??
I would like to thank you in advance for your kind answer..
Thx
Jose Paixao, Dili.
Dear Sr. Jose,
We know of around 15 people who are writing and at least one that has finished. Rogerio Dos Reis from Dili has finished his Istoria, but wants to edit it a bit more before he submits it to us for comments.
Thanks,
John
Thx maun JOhn,
I am about to finished mine too. Same with Rogerio, am editing some prt before sending it to you, it will around first of January.
Thank you maun JOhn n give nmy regard to mrs. Shelly...
Jose.
Shelley and I will be away from Timor Leste from December 21 to January 9, so don't worry if we don't respond over that period.
Great to hear you are almost finished. I encourage people to submit early so that we can get you constructive criticism to improve your stories before the deadline of February.
I look forward to reading your Istoria Timor.
Dear Istoria Timor,
My name is Felisberta da Silva, I had been working for Lafaek Magazine as a writer for more then one year and now I am working with UNICEF as communication programme assistant.
I just read your advertisement on the istoria timor competition on the Jornal Labarik newspaper this morning. I am very interest to enter but I am not sure if I can finished the story by the deadline as it is just one month left.
Now, I am still thinking of a topik to write about.
Dear Istoria Timor,
I just read your advertisement on the istoria timor competition on the Jornal Labarik newspaper this morning, I hope many people know the advertise and they try it after deadline and semoga isi blog ini juga ada Istoria tetum...obrigado
Mana Felisberta and Maun Robert,
Please do try and write. If you are having trouble finishing the story then drop me a line via email and maybe we can work something out. The first step is to start writing though...
Best of luck,
John
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