In Railaco, Timor-Leste, farming families have always found ways to make ends meet. Now, through community-managed cooperatives, they’re building something bigger, diversified livelihoods, shared decision-making, and economic resilience that lasts. The Sustainable Agriculture and Women’s Empowerment (SAWE) Project works alongside four villages to strengthen what’s already there.

From one crop to many possibilities

The SAWE project works alongside farming communities in Posto Railaco, Ermera Municipality, to strengthen livelihoods from the ground up.

It builds on more than a decade of community engagement in Railaco, including the Vanilla “Beans of Hope” project, which supported hundreds of farming families to diversify income through vanilla intercropping. That project proved something important: when communities lead, and cooperatives are well-structured, real and lasting change is possible.

SAWE takes those lessons further. Rather than focusing on a single crop, it supports a multi-sectoral approach, combining savings and loans groups, diversified agriculture, cooperative governance, and targeted inclusion of women and people with disabilities. The goal is economic resilience that communities own and sustain themselves.

This project expands into four new villages — Fatukero, Tokoluli, Lihu, and Matata — where community members have helped shape the program from the start.

SAWE integrates a Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) lens across all aspects of the project — from how cooperatives are governed to who gets a seat at the table in community discussions.

SAWE is grounded in a decade of learning about what works and what doesn’t in community-led development. The approach is adaptive, locally-driven, and designed to hand over power to communities from the start.

Your support can help farming families in Timor-Leste build livelihoods that last, led by the people who know their communities best.

Reports