Cpl Mick Hansen, Australian National Command Element, playing with a child from a local orphanage. Photo by Sgt Troy Rodgers, 1JPAU(P)

ASNCE caring for orphaned kids

By Cpl Jonathan Garland

IF YOU worked six days a week, what would you do on the one day you had to yourself? For a group of soldiers in Dili, Sunday is no day of rest – or not for them, anyway.

They go down to the local orphanage and give the nuns a break by taking the children to the beach for the day.

WO2 Sue Henderson, Chief Clerk and Welfare Officer for ASNCE, said the Sunday beach trip was something that had been handed down through many changes of staff at ASNCE.

“I’ve been doing this since I came here in October last year but Australians have been doing this since, I think, INTERFET days,” she said.

A number of beach toys and some tyre inner tubes have been donated for the children to use on their Sundays at the beach.
WO2 Henderson said it was great to be able to do something for the children.

“I have two children of my own – Shannon is 12 and Teegan is 10 – and every Sunday when I get back from the beach I ring them.

“We chat and they often ask me how the kids are, what we did today and if there’s anything they can send them.
“A lot of us have our own kids and this is almost a way of doing things with them while we’re not there.”

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