Alive To Give: VISIT: IHF Bali Center, May 2011

I thought I should start with a picture of the rainbow we saw just before we depart from IHF center in Buitan, Bali for Songan Village near Lake Batur to show the mood of this Sunday, 8th May 2011. It was a cloudy day, with a bit of rain, and we saw a small rainbow from one end on the surface of the sea to the other end. It was definitely, a beautiful day.

Like many other NGOs, IHF stands to do good for the poor and unfortunate children. Run by volunteers, in Bali, it was amazing to find its well-built and equipped center at the end of a small road with nothing much in its surrounding. Thomas Mecliffe, the Co-director of the center, welcomed us outside the premise with his dark grey long sleeve shirt, black bermuda and slippers with his umbrella. Set like a home sweet home, the center is definitely a quiet home for some 200 children that lives around the regency. "It's hard to define what is poor", Thomas said. I guess the world is continuously questioned with this mystery "What is poverty?".

Though many perhaps have tried to measure what poverty is, it is always hard to decide what is the right way to measure it. I see poverty as a lack of knowledge for people to live a better life that could be lived because of circumstances that limits them to be open from the world outside those that they have seen.

Our sponsored children were those who live in Songan Village, a small village on Mount Batur about 2 hours drive away from Buitan. We drove on some small 40 degree slope to reach the higher land with unfinished or spoilt asphalt road. There were small houses and huts every few hundred meters as we went up the mountain before we reach the school. IHF runs a 4 hour english class for the children in Songan in a classroom of a public local high school. Pak Komang, who seemed to work for the local National Department of Education, was a middle age Balinese man who taught about 23 students from age 9 to 15 every Sunday. Upon observation as we sat in the class for almost 2 hours, students seemed to be enthusiastic.

It seems to be hard work for IHF to run a class in this village, due to accessibility of the school and the impact of poverty that runs in this village. We met Ketut Wati and Nengah Sari, the two sponsored children, who proved to be the two shiest girls in the class (Especially Sari). We spent private time in another classroom with the two girls, where we asked a few questions. Some questions were unanswered because it was difficult to get them to talk and some answers from them involved "I don't know".

Wati is a more smiley girl than Sari, she was less shy and less timid to speak out. I had a curious question I needed an answer for, "What do you want to be when you grow up?". It was a question I had in mind for a long time for these children. It was a question of hope. I tried to get some answers from Wati, but I was unlucky. No, they're the unlucky ones. Unlucky for them to do not have chance to see the world outside Songan, outside the farming lives of their parents, outside the one hour walking up and down the mountain from their houses to the school. It was a kind of frustration to know this first hand. It wasn't surprising of course, but I can't help but to ask myself "What can I do to change this for children like them?".

I realized that I was only in a small village called Songan, somewhere in the north of Bali. I realized that there are countless small villages like Songan in Bali, and that there are other Songans outside Bali all over Indonesia. This is poverty, the circumstances where people are shut from many possibilities and the limitation that lies between children and hope.

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To share my own story, apart from the past five years, I spent all my life with the urban luxury of internet, various media, and experiences of a few different cultures that presented me with some knowledge that many home-grown Indonesians are not exposed with. For the past five years, I've been grooming many Indonesians to open their minds to the world outside this isolated village in Riau. I run a small factory that export products, and working closely with some of their Singaporean colleagues. Five years ago, I learned that our Singaporean colleagues underestimated our staff here, simply because they are born as Indonesians. I learned that many started with the mindset that Indonesians are less clever people, less educated people, less capable people. Four years ago, upon a departure of an expatriate employee, I decided to stop recruiting another expatriate and gave chance to our local employees. One by one, I tried to guide them to open their minds and tried to show that the world is full of possibilities beyond all that they know. For four years, we haven't been recruiting expatriates in the departments where we used to employ them and the departments are improving. I watched the transition of some people from lacking self-confidence to become full of confidence and become proactive by default. I observed some personnels who were once the true followers to now become the enthusiastic leaders. I realized that to help them, we have to start with the mindset that "they can".

I wonder now, who create poverty? Who created the barrier for impoverished people to become richer as persons? Have those who try to help put together the right actions or push the right buttons? Can we create hope for the unlucky ones? Can we really teach them how to fish rather than to give them fish to eat? Can poverty really be demolished? Can we have faith in them and believe that "they can", they can open their hearts, minds, and eyes, and make it out of poverty regardless of life that has condition them to become who they are?

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We would like to thank Thomas and the volunteers of IHF for the time and opportunity to see Songan and its children, as well as the hard work you've done in Bali as an effort to open doors of possibilities for these children of Bali. It was a memorable trip to see what life and people is like in these villages, and it was a fun, adventurous ride to go up the mountain and we can't imagine what life is like for the inhabitants to walk on foot for hours to go from one place to another.

It's trully a great thing you do there. Well done IHF!

International Humanity Foundation website: http://www.ihfonline.org