Kolewa focuses on children and families who live in the most isolated areas of Indonesia, where other foundations do not or barely come. A lot of families live in extreme poverty and can hardly take care of themselves. Right medical supplies are lacking as well as knowledge about hygiene, health, healthy food, birth control and more.
Children born with a handicap do not get the care they need, with often disastrous consequences. Some children have severe deformities because of not treating burns wounds, underweight because of the lack of healthy food and children who are not able to eat because of cleft-lip. In the western world, children with physical disabilities are most of the time immediately treated. However, in Indonesia, these children do not get the adequate care they need. As a result, the normal functioning of these children is severely hampered.
The goal of the Kolewa Foundation is to give children, that cannot participate in the community because of physical inabilities, a chance on a reasonable place in their society.
How do we achieve this:
*Outreach
We mainly work on the NTT islands, the smaller and poorer islands east of Bali such as Timor, Flores, Rote, Sumba and Sumbawa. We also have patients from the Moluccas. During the outreach we travel and scout children who need surgery or medical assistance. For example, team member Widia regularly visits the island of Sumba. 
Together with scout Anggie she goes into the remote area by moped. Poverty and ignorance have resulted in a huge range of patients. Not only cleft lip and palate children, but also serious burns, children born without an anus, hydrocephalus and spina bifida find their way to the Kolewa foundation.
*Preparation and accompaniment
The staff and volunteers accompany the patients to the hospitals on Bali for research and surgeries. The foundation takes care of costs and shelter during this period.
*Surgeries and supplies
Kolewa facilitates operations and also takes care of supplies, like a wheelchair or special shoes.
*Revalidation and (special) education
After a child underwent first aid on Bali (like a surgery, hearing devices or glasses) we search for the right form of revalidation. For some kids, there is the Lumina preschool or special education like SLB-schools. For others, this can be a children’s home near a school of special education. Several kids get speech therapy in addition to their regular training. For example in Karangasem kids get speech therapy every week from our team.
*Awareness and advice
Parents are made conscious about how to optimally stimulate and support their child by parent meetings and seminars. There is also daily education in our Rumah Bicara shelter. Brothers and sisters are also involved once a year with our activities by a ‘family gathering’ with an educational character on Bali or on one of the other islands.
*The outreach-car
The outreach car with its four-wheel drive makes it possible to reach and explore the remote areas and difficult places in Bali. We go to places where others cannot come! Thanks to the modifications to the Toyota, it is possible to transport 8 to 10 people at a time to Denpasar for consultation and treatment.
