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Community Corner

Teaching Family Travels to East Timor

Curt Gabrielson, best known as the mad scientist running the Watsonville Science Workshop, and Pam Sexton, his wife and an experienced ESL teacher, are taking their kids abroad.

Often, there are times when we pull up stakes and move to another place for work opportunities or to be closer to family members. In the case of Watsonville residents Curt Gabrielson, his wife Pam Sexton, and their two children, they are moving half-way around the world to help those in need.

Their destination is East Timor (Timor-Leste), a tiny country located on Timor, an island in the Indonesian archipelago that lies between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, north of Australia. Their journey will take two days, starting in San Francisco on Aug. 2, stopping in Taiwan, next to Bali, then finally on to East Timor.

Their Mission

The purpose of their trip is to work in conjunction with the country to provide educational as well as human rights support for the nation’s residents. Sexton’s involvement with the country began in the early 1990’s while living abroad in Indonesia. When she returned to the United States, she joined the East Timor Action Network (now known as the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network.) She and Gabrielson have been to the country before, living there off and on a total of four years. This time, they will be staying anywhere from two to three years.

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Gabrielson, who holds a degree from MIT in Physics, runs the in Watsonville, which was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

His expertise in science and math carries over to his work in East Timor.

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"I work with teachers on all levels, elementary through college,” he said. “I work with the Ministry of Education to train these teachers to do more hands-on, relevant effective science education, and help to develop curriculum that’s based on the local environment, and local experience, using local materials.” 

Sexton holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Vassar College in Anthropology, and a teaching credential from San Francisco State University. Since 1994 she has been a teacher at the teaching ESL, citizenship, parent education, and a positive discipline program. She also runs “Together in The Park,” a free drop in program for parents who have small children. She also taught high school English and social studies in San Francisco.

Once she gets her family settled in their new home, Sexton will be involved with two organizations.

“One is La’o Hamutuk, which means ‘walking together,’” she said. “It’s an organization that monitors the international agencies and organizations that are doing development work or business in East Timor. They work to build international solidarity around sustainable development.”

The second organization is a national women’s organization that focuses on violence prevention. 

Global Assistance for East Timor and Other Nations

Their projects are being sponsored by IF, an independent nonprofit organization that supports grassroots community projects to address locally identified needs—including health and nutrition, care of the environment, food and shelter, education and economic self-help—around the world and in the US. 

The couple explained in a statement: “We recently became involved with IF. The organization has done projects in the past where they support local people going to other countries to do solidarity work. They heard about our project and offered to support us. They offered to be our sponsor and help us in terms of fund raising.”

There will be a send-off event for the couple from 5:30-9 p.m. today (Friday, July 27) at the at 218 E. Beach St. Guests will be able to learn more about the couple’s work in East Timor, plus they can see science projects that Curt will be working on once they arrive.

For more information about IF and Gabrielson and Sexton’s work, log onto IF’s site at www.integrities.org. If you’d like to follow their journey, visit their blog at www.timorrising.wordpress.com.

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