YAYASAN KASIH PEDULI ANAK

After the thirteen-hour-layover-from-hell in Kuala Lumpur due to the most intense bout of food poisoning of my life, I actually passed out getting off my flight in Denpasar. The upside to this embarrassment was they wheeled me through customs; paid for my entrance visa; and got me out ahead of a few other hundred pasty-white tourists. Oh yes, warm Indonesian air. I sat there wishing I was dead, and when Catherine came to pick me up, although I was about 10% all there, we headed straight for the Yayasan (a school/safehouse for some of Bali's street kids, which this blog is about).
No rest for the willing!

The Yayasan is a modest two story building brimming with love. Upon arrival, I was well taken care of by the volunteer doctor who no doubt sees his share of food poisoning. And to my pleasure, I was greeted by some familiar faces and other unfamiliar, but extremely happy and healthy smiles, who by now (as I write this blog) are as close to me as family.

Giving the full time staff a break on my second day. Egg and green veg... using what was there and trying to make a somewhat balanced meal.
Catherine is to my left and Putu, the head honcho is at the far right of the picture.


Although I had been offered several volunteer posts for my "voluntourism" stint for this year's Chinese New Year break, I decided to return to Bali for more grass roots activism. I worried I might regret it. After all, the other posts were in India working with women and Vietnam helping to set up sustainable farming -  two places that top my "must go" list and two jobs that would challenge and reward me in ways Bali may not be able to. But quickly my fears of regret abated as soon as I saw the kids that I had known from the streets last year: healthy bodies, smiles on their faces, clean clothes, safe in the yayasan - I knew it had been the right choice.

One afternoon, Catherine helped with their homework.



While I taught the younger ones other important skills like making funny faces.

 

Yayasan Kasih Peduli Anak (deeply loving and caring for children) is a non-denominational Indonesia non-profit charity assisting Bali street children in a transparent way with the help of local and international volunteers. The mission of this yayasan is to "give love, caring, education, skills and health care for needy children to have a good and happy life." and the vision is to "see these children living in safety, enjoying childhood, growing into healthy, spiritual, educated adults with job skills and as moral citizens." (More on this in a later post when I tell you about the orangorangproject - a business that I am helping Catherine work on here).


In any developing country there is poverty and begging. But in Indonesia, the adults for the most part exploit their children in many ways - the main one being pimping them out to beg on the streets. The kids are actually pretty good at English too, and of course it is easy for tourists to give them a few dollars (which can easily feed a family for a week here) but when you give money to a child begging or selling on the street, someone else gets that money: They must give your donation to their 'boss', some adult who typically does not work, and treats them abusively. Moreover, The 'polici' repeatedly capture the children, take your donations from them and then abuse the children in various ways. You encourage this sad life to continue for many years; and for girls, this can develop into working in the sex trade - for some  (we took one out for dinner the other day with broken hearts) they are not even teenagers yet. Furthermore, when you give food instead of money, the child doesn't have enough money to give the boss, who frequently physically abuses them, doesn't let them come 'home' to sleep, etc.

So the idea is to get them out of this spiral of abuse and back into school. The only way to get support from the parents is to somehow have them making them same amount of money that they would if they were working the streets. So one thing they do is sell their art class art as cards.



Another important thing we've bee doing with them is something that I consider myself an expert at: playing.
I may not have any motherly instinct or skill...but I do know how to play.
There is a soccer field near by, and we spent an afternoon this week tiring each other out.





A wonderful semi-retired Kiwi couple has a house up the road with a pool. They are involved in various things with the Yayasan; one of which is to teach the kids how to swim. So Friday afternoon we packed the kids into a taxi and took them up there.


Imagine living on a small island and not knowing how to swim? Well, believe it or not, only a handful here do. Hence: water-wings soup.

And lets just say my brief lifeguarding education as a teen came in quite handy on this afternoon. More than once.

Catherine and I also had the thrill of teaching this new guy how to swim.
His first time EVER. He was equally as thrilled.

As important as playing with them, is watching them, listening to them, and letting them just be kids - when a year prior their were being exploited as workers until 5 and 6 in the morning and not allowed even to go to school let alone eat junk food or watch tv.


The next challenge to all involvoved will be what to do as these kids grow into teenagers, and then of course adults. After all, their families and in some cases villages rely solely on them.
What skills can we help to teach them and values impress on them in order to improve not only their lives but the lives of their entire villages for the future? We're working on it.


Until then, I'll work on relaxing a bit too.
Playing with the fish both in the water and on land.
I'll also try to steer clean from any more stomach issues by following my own Bali-based advice: water is for playing; Arak is for drinking.


www.ykpa.org