On Wednesday 9 September 2009 an email was sent around in the hopes of collecting enough donations to buy a handful of toothbrushes for children living in some of the poorest villages on the island of Lombok, Indonesia.
Less than one week later on Tuesday 15 September, Brynna Rafferty-Brown and Rowan Gould headed off to Indonesia, their bags weighed down with $1,000 worth of English language, colouring and story books, an abundance of educational posters and cuddly soft toys, as well as $4,000 in cash – the remainder of the donations they had received in less than a week. Due to the incredible generosity of family, friends and community in Australia, combined with invaluable discounts from businesses and the selfless work of numerous volunteers in Bali and Lombok, Lombok Kids was born.
Lombok Kids is a not-for-profit initiative run and supported entirely by volunteers and the generosity of individuals. In Australia and Indonesia we’re also supported by well-established grassroots organisations like the local women's cooperative and NGO Koperasi Annisa in Lombok and the Islamic Centre for Education and Development (ICED) in Melbourne.
Where We Work
West Nusa Tenggara, home to the island of Lombok, is one of the poorest provinces in Indonesia. We’ve chosen to focus our work in Lombok as a number of us have personal experience working with a highly successful, though often under-resourced, local women’s cooperative on the island – Koperasi Annisa. Rather than bringing in our own ideas of what we think needs to be done, we’re committed to working with existing local organisations like Annisa to support and extend the amazing work they’re already doing on the ground. So far in Indonesia we’ve worked with Annisa to bring health and education packs to disadvantaged children in some of Lombok’s poorest villages. We’ve also worked with local volunteers from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to bring an art workshop, books and other educational material to refugee children living in Lombok.
Keep reading for an idea of our plans for the future and more stories of what we’ve achieved so far...
Health & School Supplies for Kids in Remote Villages
In 2009, after receiving input from the local Lombok women’s cooperative Koperasi Annisa, a team of volunteers in Bali and Lombok scoured the shelves of stationery stores and chemists to put together health and education packs for 360 underprivileged children and their families.
The incredible staff at Annisa then put their heads together to name 360 of the most disadvantaged children in 11 villages throughout Lombok who all received hand delivered packs over the next three days as, with an Annisa expert in the lead, we explored the nooks and crannies of Lombok’s amazing country side and remote villages.
Children at Gegerung Selatan village
Read more about…
What’s in a health and education pack?
Current projects
We’re currently collecting donations for Koperasi Annisa’s early education programs and economic empowerment initiatives for underprivileged kids and families in Lombok. Donations are being collected throughout September 2011 and will be sent to Lombok at the end of the month.
For more information email Brynna at: lombok.kids@iced.org.au
A huge thank you to everyone who has donated so far! So far we've raised $490. Let's see if we can get it closer to the $5,000 we managed in 2009 by the end of the month :-)
Education & Fun for Refugee Kids & Families
For those who haven’t heard about refugees in Lombok, in 2009 there were quite a lot of them! From Iraq, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Iran, many had been living in Indonesia for years where the only access most had to education was English classes run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Classes were run by highly committed local English teachers with resources that amounted to little more than a dictionary and a handful of English language novels.
So, on our second day in Lombok we delivered our 200 educational and story books, along with sixty folders of work sheets for teachers and students under the IOM program. The folders were created and the books coded into categories and levels of difficulty the week before thanks to the generous help of local Balinese friends happy to give up their weekend and international tourists looking for a Bali holiday with a difference.
On the third day Brynna and her brother Callan, together with local IOM staff and volunteers plastered the classroom walls with educational posters and set things up ready for an action packed art workshop for refugee children from Iraq and Vietnam. The day finished off with takeaway lunch for everyone and a cuddly soft toy for each refugee child.
A young Iraqi girl with her toy, after playing with her new textas!
And an Iraqi boy with his teddy and his favourite teacher
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Going Loco for Lombok
In 2010, Lombok Kids was officially on a break as some of its main organisers spent a year studying overseas. But the broader Lombok Kids community did not rest! Two of 2009’s donors, both with their own connections to Lombok and Annisa, organised an incredible 84km over-night adventure challenge. Through the challenge they raised almost $3,000 to support education in Gegerung, one of poorest villages we visited in Lombok. Donations were delivered to Annisa last year and were used to help Gegerung children buy the basics for school – things like uniforms, school bags and pencils. Thanks to Jeremy and Maria and Going Loco for Lombok many families are now able to send their children to primary school.
Read more at: http://adventurewithmazjem.blogspot.com
More Stories and Future Plans
There are lots more stories and background information about the villages we visited with Koperasi Annisa. Each page includes photos of the children we met, some of the reasons each village is in need, stories of their families, and an overview of other ways Annisa is working with the locals to slowly but surely turn things around.
Aside from this year's fundraising effort, we plan to coordinate with Annisa on an ongoing basis to work out what we can all help with. One of the first questions on our list will be to see how useful the last lot of help provided was. Were health and education packs useful? If they were, is replenishing them a priority – a toothbrush can only last so long after all! How are the kids going that started primary school, do their uniforms still fit? How are Annisa’s volunteer teachers going? You might be interested in making a small but regular donation so they can get a small wage?
We’ll see what other ideas discussions with Annisa bring about! Any suggestions from you are also always welcome!
For those looking for a more business-oriented opportunity to help, we have photos of beautiful traditional furniture made by teenage street children. A sister-organisation of Annisa works with street kids to combine trade and traditional subjects in a program that bring kids back to study without forcing them to give up work and helping their families.
For any other questions, input, feedback or donations, please send an email to: lombok.kids@iced.org.au.
Thank you & Terima kasih!