Projects

Sponsors Renewals

I have recently returned from Kareng Asem in Bali, where I visited our sponsor children in the village of Seraya Barat,

We are very please to inform you that the children are all well and in good health. We took the children some presents and each child was presented with a little show bag filled with items they might not usually get and a hat and shirt each kindly donated by West Coast Property Training.

We are also excited to inform you of our recent alliance with the above mentioned organisation from Western Australia that runs training in Bali.

They have been interested in contribution to a philanthropic endeavour and have consequently chosen ours! We hope to be able to do further work in the village and possibly provide more teachers to the school to create English lessons with the funds raised from their help.

Below are some photos of our recent trip. As has now become the custom, the kids preformed some traditional dances for us. We were excited to see how much they have improved since last year.

The dance was absolutely beautiful and carried out with great courage in front of the whole school.

After the dances we handed out the gifts to the kids from the village, a total of 50 in all. In the left of the photo below is YKIPs new director Deasy. I am happy to tell that Deasy is a fantastic addition to the administration team there. Her English is perfect and she is very smart and comes to us with great experience. I really enjoyed getting to know her this trip and was very impressed with the changes she has made. Deasy is very keen to help us organise the extra classes/tutorials to include English and has also suggested we can help the village a great amount by funding some new Gamelan Orchestra equipment.

We have now been sponsoring these children for over 4 years and have had the privilege of seeing them grow and learn. Over the 5 year period I have been travelling to Kareng Asem I have seen a substantial change in the conditions for these kids. When I first drove into this village all that time ago I saw sullen and blank faces, met children that had never been to school in spite of being well over the age of attendance and saw kids that had never had the opportunity to just be kids and play and learn. Now as I drive up that same road, I see children run alongside the vehicle waving and excited. I see kids that have learnt to read and write and I talk with their teacher who tells me of their various struggles and conquests.

Several of our sponsor children have now achieved secondary school! And one day we hope to be able to tell you that they are now ready to go to University. We are very grateful to you for coming on this journey with us.

We hope that you will continue so that this possibility can become a reality!

Once again, thanks for your support and we look forward to your continuing help.

Back to School - Bali

VOW coordinates the sponsorship for 26 kids in Bali, via a long standing association with an organisation based there.

Yayasan Kemanusiaan Ibu Pertiwi , often referred to as YKIP, is our beneficiary organisation of choice. They are a hard working independent organisation set up in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings. Among other efforts they run KEMBali, Kids Education Management in Bali, a program helping to keep children in education. You can find out more about their efforts at their site.

pic_for_bali_page

Moneys go to supporting the youth in Bali thorough their education, both directly and indirectly, via school fees, suitable clothing, stationary and other resources including meals.

Our association with YKIP originally arose from a chance meeting while our founder, Damien Thornber, was visiting Bali. Combining a holiday with his then current project, a film clip for his band The Orphans to promote their philanthropic message, he was searching for a suitable place to film. Coming across the village at the close of the day, he was moved and stayed in touch with the village. A sponsor himself, he inspired VOW to coordinate a number of others to assist YKIP with their goals.

We have collected a number of images of these wonderfully appreciative youth, collected over the past few years. You can find these amoung our images on the VOW site.

Bio Latrines

BioLatrines are an environmentally friendly solution to many of the issues caused by overpopulation and endemic poverty.

Lack of ablutions causes polluted water tables and diseases that cause death. The bio-latrine takes a simple principle of science, and utilizes it in a very low maintenance operation that can be constructed from local material has no moving parts or machinery and needs no fuel other than human waste.

It is the very simple replication of what has been used in China and India for centrys but for the first time, on human waste. It can be adapted for any culture regardless of wet flushing or dry and its by-products have several uses. As the waste decomposes it creates methane gas, this gas can be leached off simply by its own pressure and reticulated to the surrounding community up to a 200 meter radius. This is a fuel soures that leaves little residue upon ignition and can be used for heating, cooking or used to run generators that function on gas. Areas of extreme poverty contribute heavily to green house emissions because of the use of fossil fuels like wood and coal for cooking and heating, not to mention the rapid destruction of forestry through harvesting for this limited fuel source.

This alternative reverses this situation by making a free gas available. In essence a problem is converted into a solution to other problems. But this is not the end. The secondary by-product is a liquid fertilizer that can be sold for use on nor-comestible crops such as roses etc.

This then forms an income for the fund of the latrine. Other examples have been used where residents pay 1 cent for entry this is also added towards the running cost to buy toilet paper and so forth.

We like the idea of the Bio-latrine as a concept for schooling facilities. The ablutions could infact be the income source or micro business to fund the curriculum and teachers wages of a school, in fact the latrines can be a perfect building for classes as you can see in the photos, they have large cool rooms idea for classrooms.

In Africa these rooms are rented out to Doctors that run small clinics for the people.

Sponsor a Child

Name:Ji ke A ji D.O.B: July, 1998 Also known as Sally Background: Mother sentenced to prision for 15 years in 1998 due to drug trafficking. Father commited suicide in 2002. VOW sponsors several children as well as works alongside an organization in Indonesia known as YKIP.

For virtually a dollar a day, these children can get their first pair of shoes, go to school for the first time, get a meal every day, and hopefully be the glimmer of hope their families need to escape child slavery and indescribable poverty.

Your donations are vital to keeping these children healthy and happy.

Click here to make a donation or sponsor a child today.

Bali with a Difference: 7 - 12 September, 2009

A Paradise for Westerners, Bali is also home to some of the poorest conditions on the planet. Ever wanted to meet and help truly needy children at Australia’s doorstep, or wanted to sponsor a child and see for yourself where your money actually goes? Make your vision a reality this September!