Friendship and Relationship building.

What is Friendship?

• Friendship is a difficult term to describe accurately.
• It means different things to different people.
• The key terms that describe friendship are trust, sharing, cooperation, reciprocity, mutual respect and forgiveness.
• It is important for your group to think abut what Friendship means and how you are going to articulate that in your projects and activities.

see paper by Rebecca Spence, Fiona Ninnes and Jose Mousaco, xxx, for more information on how Friendship is interpreted. Insert link to PDF file)

Why are the Agreements called Friendship Agreements?

• Friendship Agreements are a product of the troubled history shared between Timor Leste and Australia.
• In World War II Timorese villagers assisted Australian soldiers as they battled the Japanese army. Over 40,000 Timorese were killed by the Japanese
• After the withdrawal of Australian troops, the Australian Government dropped hundreds of leaflets by air over the villages in Timor Leste that read: “Your friends will never forget you”.
• It was this initial declaration of Friendship that was the rationale for calling the subsequent relationships ‘Friendship Agreements’.