This edition of Palms Post reflects on our own learning through volunteering and Encounter in Palms, through stories from Timor Leste and reminders from past participants. We invite you now to revisit a quintessential Palms learning – the practice of Simplicity – and to walk with us to embed that into your life.
Director’s Reflection
What the World Needs Now: Resilience
We were running late. It was after nightfall and we were on our way to our evening accommodation when we found our way blocked by a broken-down truck. No problems: we hitched the truck to our 4WD and pulled it out of the way in order to pass. A bit further along though there was another broken down truck. A little more difficult this time – they were uphill and we would have to be pulling them from a water logged ditch. The solution: retrace steps to find an alternative route… But then there was a third broken down truck, this time needing a spare part.
If we were in Australia, most people I know would at this point erupt into a tirade of expletives and blame-placing: ‘you should have brought a spare’; ‘you don’t even have a shovel or winch with you’; ‘why didn’t you get your truck serviced before you left home?!’ etc.
But we were on an Encounter Tour in Timor Leste. So instead, all the drivers just got out of their vehicles and started helping each other. And – miraculously – three hours later, a spare part had not only been obtained (on a Saturday night) but had been fitted (by the light of torches in the pitch black darkness). We helped to pull the truck out and it drove off. And we went on our way – exhausted and requiring a program change, but on our way.
It’s a simple story, and one that doubtless happens literally every day. But it illustrates the essence of what a Palms placement teaches us. We might be going with a specific laudable purpose – fulfilling a necessary role, mentoring, sharing skills – but adjustments to the initial purpose will inevitably be required. There is much which is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and probably uncomfortable. However it all contributes to the rich learning which can only be gained by putting oneself in the situation of being an ordinary neighbour.
In our case there were multiple lessons: the value of patience, the blessings of community, the ingenuity bred of scarcity, the triumph of sheer grit and determination… and a natural overwhelming respect for our hosts.
These are the sorts of learnings which are common to every Palms placement. And they have inspired us to share this with our community in Australia in a new campaign we are calling ‘Simplicity September’. Read about it below, along with a report on highlights of the 2026 Timor Leste Encounter, some reflections from the field by one of our volunteers in Timor Leste, Wendy Baker, and updates on some of the roles available there now.
From Timor-Leste: This Month’s Encounter
Highlights of the 2026 Encounter
This month the Executive Director led a small group on a two week educational tour of Timor-Leste, travelling from its most western (and most isolated) province of Oecusse, to the hills of Maliana, Ainaro, Maubisse and Alieu, and Venilale, all communities where Palms partners work. They met local teams, saw community-led development up close, and had the chance to test a few of their own assumptions about how change actually happens.
Why do we do this ?
The annual Palms Encounter Tour introduces potential volunteers and their supporters to Palms’
development approach by meeting volunteers and partners and seeing the local context firsthand. I was privileged to be able to lead the tour for the second year.
Participants rated the 2026 tour to Timor Leste 4.6/5 for improving understanding of global mission and development volunteering. So our primary purpose has been met. On top of that I am thrilled that we scored a perfect 5/5 for learning about Timorese culture and history. For that, I offer thanks largely to the people we met and our excellent driver and local guide, Gido.
The tour introduced eight tour participants to 13 partner organisations, covering a number of key development sectors .
Education
Predictably, education emerged as a dominant theme given Timor‑Leste’s young population and the continuing post‑occupation need to rebuild the education system in the country. There was a strong, palpable demand for English and vocational training across communities.
Some of the key partners were met with were:
- Teacher training colleges (Jesuit and Marist) — currently hosting Palms volunteer Wendy and seekingmentoring in financial administration.
- Salesian vocational training school — seeking an English teacher.
- Encouragement House (rural student boarding home) and Alieu youth organisation — both seeking mentorsfor youth English and Microsoft skills.
- Parishes in Ainaro and Maubisse — seeking school teachers.
- Community Learning College in Vemasse — seeking English language and agribusiness mentors.
Community development and economic empowerment
We visited several local development initiatives:
- Ahisaun (disability support) – seeking fundraising and business development mentoring.
- Reloka (nature‑based community development) — currently hosting our permaculture mentor Andie
- Balibo Community Learning Centre — demonstrating ongoing community education and skills work, following Palms’ significant mentoring contribution for over a decade.
Health sector engagement
We visited health partners including the Jesuit Social Services clinic at Kasait, where nursing volunteer Marion is based. We also began scoping potential dental mentoring following interest from an Encounter participant.
Learning moments and reflections
The current public policy space is buzzing with discussions on regional security and Australia’s role. So it felt particularly appropriate now to make this small contribution to improving our regional literacy through the tour. As they walked intently through the many museums we visited – most participants commented that they had never heard these perspectives in formal schooling, or mainstream media. It demonstrated the many-layered nature of the impact of Palms work.
Next steps
The strongest outcome reported by participants was a deepened desire to build long-term relationships with Timor-Leste. My hope is that desire – paired with the clear needs our partners identified – gives us concrete opportunities to match volunteers and mentors to placements that will make a lasting difference.
Stories From the Field
Wendy Baker, Baucau, Timor-Leste
For the past year, Wendy Baker has been mentoring English language teachers at ICJP Teacher Training Institute in Baucau, run by the Marist community. As her trainees begin their three month prac placements, Wendy has taken on something new. Drawing on her accounting background, she is now mentoring the institute’s finance team.
It was never part of her original brief. It grew out of time spent together, and a host and a volunteer coming to understand each other’s strengths and needs. That is the heart of long-term volunteering. Palms volunteers are not consultants. They become part of the community and contribute their skills as they learn more about the people around them.
Wendy wrote to us about her year:
“The character of our students and the people working beside us is a real blessing. Our students come from many different regions of Timor-Leste, and we all learn together and from each other.
I love going to Mass with the community. I walk down our road and chat with people as I pass, and everyone greets me with ‘Bondia!’ The warmth is real. The Cathedral is always packed. There are no hymn books, but everyone knows the hymns, and the moment the organist plays the first couple of notes the whole parish recognises the tune from a lifetime of singing. They go to it with angelic voices and boundless enthusiasm.
Robert, the local rooster, wakes us all at about 4am. I keep hoping he will sleep in. Fresh fruit and vegetables are everywhere, usually sold by ladies at the roadside or in the market, and the livestock roams free, which makes for some colourful moments on the road.
When I worried about the rubbish, one local put it beautifully: ‘Mana, we have only been a new country for 25 years, and we cannot do it all at once.’ They face many hurdles and they meet them with extraordinary grace. In short, I love this country and its people very much.”
If you, or someone you know, has the flexibility and humility to share your skills this way, you may be surprised just how transferable they turn out to be. Many of our current placement opportunities are on the website. Others might be discussed after application. It starts with an Expression of Interest…. what have you got to lose ?
Marion Parsons, Kasait, Timor-Leste
Marion Parsons came to Timor-Leste in 2006, in the middle of a crisis. A nurse and educator, she first offered to help Timorese evacuated to Darwin that year, never expecting it to become a vocation. “I got here and thought, oh my God, it was such a mess,” she remembers. She stayed anyway.
Nearly two decades on, she is still there, working alongside Jesuit Social Services at the Daniel Ornelas health centre in Kasait. Her days run from wound care and first aid training to health education and long trips out to isolated communities, often in the wet season on roads that test both nerve and commitment. Better wound-care techniques have sped up healing, and her vigilance has lifted awareness of tuberculosis and dengue that had been going undiagnosed. “To come in after six months and hear people say what a difference it made,” she reflects, “that was very heartwarming.”
Returnee Stories: 65 Years of Palms
This year marks 65 years of Australians sharing skills, building genuine relationships, and living out solidarity alongside communities overseas. We asked our returnees what those years meant to them, and the stories have been arriving ever since. Clair and Frances’s stories are shared below.
Where it began: Clair Redfern, Papua New Guinea, 1962
Clair Agnes Redfern, then Clair Toohey, was one of the very first Australians Palms sent overseas. A farmer’s daughter from the Forbes district of New South Wales, she was doing secretarial work in Sydney when, at 21, she decided to follow a calling she had held since childhood.
In her words: “I have the distinction of being the first volunteer to become a lay missionary through Palms. We were presented with our missionary crosses by the late Cardinal Norman Gilroy before our departure. I think there were six of us on the plane to what we knew then as the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. I was assigned to the Capuchin Friars in the Mendi Diocese and became their first female lay missionary.
Not being a qualified teacher, I was assigned to prep classes, and the children ranged in age from 5 to 15. It was a revelation to see that they had the same capacity to learn as children anywhere. They only had hope.”
Clair returned to Forbes in 1965, married a local farmer, Bob, and raised ten children. Now 85 and living at St Vincent’s Care Services, she still looks back warmly on her New Guinea years. “I will always be grateful to Palms for the preparation and support they gave me.”
Frances Scurfield, Diocese of Kundiawa, Papua New Guinea, 2005 to 2007
Frances was 54 when she volunteered, her three boys grown and starting families of their own. She had long felt a pull to help in a country less fortunate than Australia, and a placement in office administration and financial accounting at the Bishop’s office in Mingende, in the highlands Diocese of Kundiawa, fitted her skills.
“When I went to Mingende I thought I would make great changes there, but I was the one changed,” she wrote. She trained several young people in the diocesan office in accounting and procedures, and almost twenty years on that office is still running. One of her mentees, Maureen, is now finance manager at one of the larger stores in Kundiawa.
The Bishop of Kundiawa, Bishop Paul Sundu, remembers her warmly. He wrote to us that Frances became “like a mother to the community,” forming genuine relationships with the priests, religious and staff around her, and that her care and simplicity left a deep impression. He still treasures a letter she once sent for his priestly anniversary, teasing him through a grand list of titles, Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, before crossing them all out to settle on “Fr Paul.” He credits her, too, with mentoring Maria Kuglame, the diocese’s financial officer, who served faithfully for 26 years before retiring. “Frances’ service truly reflects the spirit of Palms,” he wrote, “walking with people, sharing life, and building capacity that endures beyond the placement.”
Were you part of these 65 years? We would still love to hear your story. Email palms@palms.org.au with “My story” in the subject line.
Vale: Sue Ryan
We were saddened to learn that Sue Ryan [pictured right next to fellow volunteer Helena Charlesworth], a New Zealand science teacher who volunteered with Palms in Kiribati and later Samoa, passed away on 29 April. During her years at Sacred Heart College in Tarawa, Sue helped train a young maths teacher, Tebwebwe Claude, for the role of principal. He leads the college still, and it has grown from a few hundred students to well over a thousand under his care. It is a quiet, lasting example of what these placements can set in motion. Our thoughts are with all who knew her.
Stand with Palms Before 30 June
Palms receives no Australian government funding. Every skilled Australian we’ve placed alongside a community over the past 65 years has been made possible by supporters who believe in this work.
A tax-deductible gift before 30 June goes directly to preparing, placing and supporting volunteers in the communities that ask for them. Donations over $2 are tax-deductible.
Membership 2026/27
Renew or join as a member for 2026/27
Renewing or joining as a member keeps you connected to Palms through the year and supports the governance of an organisation that has responded to community-led requests since 1961.
Rates are the same as last year:
Couple concession: $72 (student/pensioner)
Single: $96
Single concession (student/pensioner): $48
Couple: $144
Leaving a Gift in Your Will
A gift in your will helps make sure communities can keep asking for, and receiving, the skilled volunteers they need for years to come. If you’d like to talk about leaving a bequest to Palms, we’d be glad to have that conversation in confidence.
Call Kevin on 02 9560 5333 or email palms@palms.org.au.
Introducing Simplicity September
A Campaign for Solidarity, Simple Living and Our Global Neighbours
Returned volunteers tell us the same thing again and again. Living simply alongside a community changes how you live once you’re home. This September, we’re inviting you to try it for yourself.
The idea is simple. Choose a simple-living goal for the month, whether that’s growing your own food, walking instead of driving, mending instead of buying, or sharing more meals with neighbours. Set yourself a fundraising target, and raise money for Palms as you go. You set the goal, you set the challenge, and we’ll be there to cheer you on and celebrate with you.
This is our first year, so we’re starting with the people who know the idea best, our volunteers and supporters. We are conducting a trial this month – if you’d like to be part of it, register your interest here. In July and August we will be launching the other aspects of Simplicity September, which will involve schools and families. If you are connected to a school which might be interested in this program, please call or email us to let us know.
Volunteers We’re Looking For
These roles have been requested by our partner communities and are ready to fill. Please pass them on to anyone who might be right for the work.
- IT systems and development, Saint Paul Institute, Cambodia
- Finance and accounting mentor, and an auditor, Diocese of Kundiawa, Papua New Guinea
- Small business and marketing mentor, Nazareth Foundation, Timor-Leste
- Agriculture roles in Vemasse, Ainaro and Aileu, Timor-Leste
View all current opportunities
Conversations Across the Divide
The world – and Australia – is becoming an increasingly fractitous place. As cost of living pressures bite and economies restructure, Australians are searching for answers. Some ascribe change to the concentration of wealth and power in major multinational corporations, some to AI, others to corruption and a dilution of the spirit of public service, some to rampant individualism and social media… and some to migration.
There are many life lessons learnt from a Palms placement. One of the most valuable is the capacity for perspective taking. And now is potentially a moment when this skill could be put to use for common good.
We are considering collaborating with others to hold training on leadership and organising for anti-racism. It will be non party-political. The emphasis will be more on bringing personal experience into discussions in order to open our attitudes to ’the Other’ and consider ways of collaborating for genuine social change.
If you would be interested in engaging with this project, this please email palms@palms.org.au with the header ‘Across the Divide’.
Save the Date: Coastal Connections
We’ll be gathering to celebrate our volunteers at Coastal Connections in Sydney on 29 October. More to come closer to the day.
Seniors Week/ Month in Victoria
We are hoping to take advantage of Seniors Week/Month gatherings in Victoria and Queensland in October to do recruitment sessions. If you would be willing to join a session to tell your Palms story, please let us know – palms@palms.org.au or tel 02 95605333.
Palms International Volunteering acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People have to their lands and waters. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and specifically acknowledge the Gadigal and Wangal People of the Eora Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which the Palms office is located.