Aid for Balinese in need
After having traveled the world for 16 months, I arrived in Bali end of February 2020. I had planned to go back home in April, but then Corona hit the world and things changed. I decided to stay for the time being, it’s been over three months now.
80-90% of Bali’s economy depend on tourism. In March most tourists decided to take the last flight to get back home. Bali was and still is shut down for international flights, no new tourist are going to arrive anytime soon.
Most bars and restaurants closed down for over a month. Some have reopened, but with no tourists the number of customers are down to 10% of what they used to be. Hotels are empty. A lot of locals have lost their jobs. Some parts of Bali currently have an unemployment rate of 90%.
In Bali, traditionally, the children take care of their parents. With the children being unemployed and having no savings, the elderly are effected heavily by this crisis as well. They are struggling to buy food and can not afford a meal every day.
The Yayasan Bali Bersih foundation, run by Rodney Westlaken, is helping in this difficult time. Rodney is Dutch, graduated in Indonesian Studies and lives here since 13 years. His foundation works closely together with the local governments and so-called Banjars (local mayors). Every Monday and Thursday, a little team drives to the different neighborhoods and hands out 100 bags of food to people in need. The Banjars know everyone in their quarter and know exactly who is in need. Those people’s names are put on a list and they are given a timeframe in which they have to come with their ID to pick up their bag of food. I donated and joined the tour and it was great to see how thankful and happy the people were to get a bag of food.
The budget for 100 bags is 5Mio Rupiah (307€). So one bag costs roughly 3€ and provides four meals for a family of four (parents and two children).
I would be more than greatful if you helped out by donating! The money you donate will be used to buy the food - nothing else! As you see, even three Euros can have a great impact here and provide a family with four meals.
The people here are some of the kindest I have met on my whole trip and it is sad to see how much they are struggling right now. I am very greatful to spend these months here and would love to give something back. It would be really great if you supported this project by donating!
