Address
Rua José Maria Marques, Acait, Dili, Timor-Leste
Opening Hours
Monday-Friday
08:30am-05:30pm
Impact Stories
Meet the Women Behind Every Product
Real journeys of resilience and creativity from AEMTL’s women entrepreneurs across Timor-Leste.
© Nuncio da Costa | ILO
Maria Marcelina
Municipality: Baucau
Producer Group: Coconut Coir Production and Prototyping Training, Brand Timor Initiative
Main Product: Coconut coir bags, hats, and fashion accessories
From Bank Teller to Bio-Entrepreneur:
Maria Marcelina's Journey with Coconut Waste
Maria Marcelina grew up surrounded by coconut trees in Baucau municipality, on Timor-Leste’s eastern coast, where coconuts grow in such abundance that they are simply part of the scenery. Like everyone around her, she watched the fruit pressed for oil and eaten for food, while the fibrous husk left behind was burned or discarded without a second thought.
Two years ago, Maria made a decision that surprised many people close to her: she left a stable job as a bank teller to grow and sell plants instead, trusting her instinct that there was more value in the natural world around her than most people recognized. Her academic background in biology had already trained her to see waste differently, not as rubbish to be thrown away, but as material with untapped potential, and the idea of a circular economy, turning what is discarded into something valuable, had quietly stayed with her.
That instinct found its match in April 2026, when Maria joined twenty-four other women for a ten-day course in coconut coir prototyping and production at the CDC Baucau Training Centre, organized by AEMTL under the Brand Timor initiative. For the first time, she learned the techniques to transform coconut husk fibre, the very material she had watched go to waste her whole life, into bags, hats, and fashion accessories.
The reaction from her own community came almost immediately. When photos of the finished products were shared on Facebook, messages poured in: people wanting to know where they could buy the items, and others asking how they could join a similar training themselves. Products that had never existed a week earlier were already attracting customers in the local market.
“My background in biology made me see waste differently, not as something to throw away, but as something with potential.”
— Maria Marcelina
For Maria, the training has become the foundation of a new chapter. Inspired by what she learned, she has since registered for a business competition organized through the Brand Timor programme, carrying forward the same vision that led her away from the bank counter and toward the coconut grove: that what a community already has, seen with fresh eyes, can become a livelihood.
Her hope now extends beyond her own workshop. Maria wants her journey to show other women in her community, especially those balancing family responsibilities with the search for income, that a home-based business is within reach, built not from something bought, but from something that was already theirs all along.
© Nuncio da Costa | ILO
Terezinha da Silva Guterres
Municipality: Baucau
Producer Group: Coconut Coir Production and Prototyping Training, Brand Timor Initiative
Main Product: Coconut coir home and fashion accessories
Still Young, Still Determined:
Terezinha's Vision for a Coconut Business
For most of her life, Terezinha da Silva Guterres understood coconut the way most people in her community did: something you eat, and something you burn for cooking fuel. It was a resource so ordinary that its full potential simply went unnoticed, until a ten-day training changed the way she saw it entirely.
In April 2026, Terezinha joined the Coconut Coir Production and Prototyping Training at the CDC Baucau Training Centre, part of the Brand Timor initiative delivered by AEMTL. There, alongside twenty-four other women, she learned that the same husk once destined for the fire could be washed, prepared, and shaped into home accessories and fashion items with genuine market value, and that coconut could support her family’s income in ways she had never imagined.
What changed for Terezinha was not only the discovery of new products, but the confidence and practical skill to make them herself. Young and visibly determined even among a room of experienced businesswomen, she left the training with more than a new technique: she left with a plan.
“I have a vision for a business with this product.”
— Terezinha da Silva Guterres
That vision did not stay on paper for long. Terezinha has since entered the business competition organized under the Brand Timor programme, determined to turn her new skills into a lasting enterprise rather than a one-time craft. For her, the training was proof that youth and ambition, paired with practical knowledge, are enough to build something real.
Terezinha now hopes that more women in her community, particularly those her own age, will have the chance to discover what she has: that a resource dismissed for generations as ordinary can, with the right skills, become the beginning of a business, and a future she is building for herself.