Sharon Labi, Dili – They idolise Britney Spears, watch lots of TV and worry about what to wear to school. But one disturbing truth sets these teenage girls apart from others their age – most have been raped and many have witnessed the torture and murder of family members.

It is only now that months after East Timor's independence that they are speaking of a positive future. They have full confidence in their new leader, President Xanana Gusmao, who like many of them, springs from a small fishing village on the country's stunning coastline. These are the chosen ones, the brightest of their eight or so siblings, who've been sent to school in Dili with the weight of their family's expectations on their shoulders. It's not cheap and tuition alone eats up one-sixth of the meagre average monthly wage of $US65. Then there are living expenses to be paid to the family members who house them. But these village kids are making good. They are learning to read and write and even to speak a few words of English. And they have the luxury of sitting on a lounge and watching TV in the evenings. Sixteen-year-old Lucia Soares Dos Santos left her family in the village of Manatuto several years ago to live with her aunt in Dili so she could be educated at Yayasan Kristal, a private Dili high school. Their electricity supply is intermittent and they have no running water. Her parents work in the fields to fund her tuition – about $A18 a month plus living expenses – and she is obliged to help domestically as part of her boarding arrangements. "I was in Manatuto at the time when the militia came. I took refuge up in the hills and lost relatives. My house was not burnt but everything inside was stolen," Lucia says through an interpreter. "I feel very angry, feel hurt when people talk about Indonesians. They killed a lot of people, raped a lot of women."

Ermenegilda Da Costa Laurentina is the eighth of 10 children and left her family behind in Los Palos to live in Dili with an older sister. Through television, she has been exposed to teen pop idols such as Britney Spears but also to other countries, fuelling an interest to travel. Ermenegilda says she has seen footage of Australian cities and wishes Dili could be as clean, with the same level of infrastructure. If she had money, she'd invest in her education. Ermenegilda is part of the new generation keen to learn. The conditions at Yayasan Kristal are not great. Classrooms are often locked, leaving hundreds of students milling about on footpaths because of kids from a rival school nearby threatening violence. When the school does open, students attend either in the morning or the afternoon because the buildings are not big enough to accommodate all 1,000 of them at the same time. The wooden chairs and tables are dusty, the floors strewn with rubbish, but there is a lengthy waiting list because of a shortage of schools in the East Timorese capital. "I'd like to see the school and the facilities here improved," Ermenegilda says. "The facilities here are very poor, and there are a lot of students who want to come to school but they get no financial assistance."

Ermenegilda says she feels sad and angry that the militia Forced her family to flee from Los Palos, but now recognises that the suffering was necessary to gain freedom and independence. But she agonises over her cultural identity and is determined not to adopt the culture of foreigners who have, in the past three years ahead of the independence, been prevalent in the tiny nation. She wants to go to university to study mathematics – her favourite subject – but that all depends on her family's finances and whether or not she can find a job to fund the fees.

Other teenage girls tell of their time on the run, and later as refugees after the Indonesian-backed militia rampaged through their homes, stealing whatever they wanted and torching the rest. Lucas Denari, 17, says his family's suffering began long before the militia tore through in 1998-99.

"Many family members were killed, tortured, raped," he says. "When my family members think about it, they still have a lot of hatred about what happened. "I feel the same, but now I understand that this is part of the history of East Timor. It's in the past now and I want to move forward." Lucas, from the village of Suai in the western part of East Timor, lives with his uncle and aunt in Dili and has been away from his family for seven years. But he says he's used to it now. It is the sacrifices of parents back in the villages that are enabling a new generation to develop a thirst for learning and dreams of one day having a career. Just like other teenagers.