In Bali the high season for tourism has arrived, which is up and running. Of course volcano Mount Agung is still active, but the real Bali lovers won’t let it stop them from enjoying Bali.

 

After a quiet period without many visitors, we again received good friends of Kolewa in March and April, from Holland and Australia. These people have a great heart for Kolewa and are highly involved. We met Koos van Alphen, Xander Klerenkoper, Bram & Rinnie de Groot and Piet and Ellie Hutzezon at the shelter home in Denpasar. They also travelled with us to various projects on several locations

Scouting patients on Timor, Alor rand Rote

A Dutch doctor went along to two NTT-islands, which was a beautiful learning experience for our team. In many cases families do not only ask help for children with cleft-lip, but also for other types of medical necessities. With a professional like Koos besides us, it becomes more easy to figure out what is the right treatment or advice to give. On Rote we visited the local hospital with Koos and Xander (a laboratory technician). For them it was shocking and impressive to see the logistic choices that were made. For instance, it was impossible to bring the patient to the X-ray department by stretcher. On request of the local authorities, Koos, Xander and Syta Plantinga (CEO of Kolewa) will put their findings on paper and will offer their advice.

Bram and Rinnie de Groot, ambassadors of Kolewa for already five years (working from their own brand ‘Project Namaste’), travelled along to the island Alor. Together with Uttari and Holldyn they visited a few children who received an operation in Bali earlier this year. Moreover, they guided three new cleft-lip patients during their medical journey. Three boys with cleft-lip and/or an open palate underwent a metamorphosis! With a beautiful smile, colourful clothing a lot of new impressions they are currently back home with their family. However the focus of Project Namaste is on children with cleft-lip, Bram an Rinnie also helped in providing water filters, visited maternity care of Nusranu Putu and helped out many times in our shelter home Ruma Bicara.

 

Liza Hewston from Adelaide (Australia) travels to Bali on a yearly base for a well-deserved vacation. Also this year she again invested a big part of her free days in the Kolewa Foundation. A suitcase full of supplies like colostomy bags, breast pumps, toys and a generous financial donation were given to the foundation. Liza went along on outreach, joined a picknick with the patients and baked Dutch ‘poffertjes’ (little pancakes) with Heldi in the kitchen. Her birthday was celebrated with the whole Kolewa team on Bali.

 

Piet and Ellie Hutzezon have their own permanent place on Bali and stay there a few months per year. They campaigned for Kolewa among friends which resulted in a beautiful donation which helped our causes a lot. Two cleft-lip children were able to receive an operation thanks to the generosity of their fantastic group of friends & family. Also the shelter home received a car full of groceries thanks to the donations. During the outreach in April they visited a few poor families in Karangasem which were also given groceries. Ten water filters were put together and donated, which gives access to clean water for many families. In May, Piet and Ellie will join our journey to Singarja to attend speech therapy lessons for children with hearing impairments. Afterwards they will visit the baby which will soon get an operation, donated by them.

 

The team of the Kolewa Foundation is always very happy with visitors. With much enthusiasm our team will tell you about their work and the children that they guide. You are very welcome to visit us in Denpasar, Jalan Pulai Sebatik 14.

Having a child, born with a disability is not a choice parents make. It is something that happens and parents who at first are overwhelmed or confused, need to realise that they have to accept the situation and make decisions others never even have to think about. Ignoring is not the right solution. The first important step is to admit there is something different about their son or daughter and reach out for help.

In this blog we talk about children with a hearing problem. After parents discovered that the communication with their child is abnormal, we recommend them to do a hearing test. This is even possible for very small children, a so-called ASSR-test. When the outcome of the test is bad-hearing, part of the problem can be solved by using hearing aid. If the child is complete deaf, than sign-language and written language is the only solution for the entire family. Parents, brothers and sisters must realise that using sign language at home is the only way to communicate in the future with their deaf child.

The past learned us that also for kids, using hearing aid, sign language is of great help. It supports them in their daily life during the communication with others. Kolewa Foundation started already years ago with a program for children with a hearing problem in Bali. Now-a-days there are  weekly free classes on Saturday and Sunday in Denpasar, on Sunday in Redang (Karamasem) and monthly on the 20th of the month in Buleleng. During these classes we provide speech-therapy (for a clear pronunciation) and teach sign language. We use a special for Kolewa Foundation published booklet to exercise.

Learning and playing at the same time makes it interesting for the children and fun for the parents too. Lessons are given by all Kolewa Foundation team-members who weekly get training from professionals at our field partner Yayasan Corti. This partner is very experienced and even has a school for special education in Denpasar with the focus on sign-language in bahasa Indonesia.

Important for the home-situation and communication are  signs for colours, animals, parts of the body, types of food and fruit and daily activities. But of course we don’t stop there . We teach children and parents counting, singing and playing games together in order to live a normal life within  their community.

As Kolewa Foundation team we are thrilled to see that the parents who join our program are so much interested, dedicated and eager to learn. It isn’t always easy to remember, all those signs. However they use all their energy in learning, determined to achieve  happiness for their children and them selves .  Together we focus on the best future for children with a hearing problem, we teach, we support and we try to convince parents to sent their children to special education where sign language is used during classes.

Holldyn Nitti (teacher)          Syta Plantinga (founder)

By Holding Nitti, team-member/teacher at Kolewa Foundation Bali.

Teaching jobs are often lucrative and satisfying for people who love to teach. We are not all professional teachers, but we know one thing that majority of our students do love us, and we guess this is the point where good things start to happen. There are some joys and also difficulties during teaching English in Niti Mandala Club Bali. Why ? Because 75% of the students that we teach are special need students. That’s why sometimes it is difficult to find a good method or theory which matches with their needs.
This problem can be solved because of a good cooperation between the students, Teachers in NMC club, a great team from Kolewa Foundation.  Kolewa Foundation team consist of one of our staff members Holldin and volunteers/interns from Holland. Together they prepare everything starting from choosing the method, preparing the subjects and materials to create active and effective learning.

Teaching in NMC Club once a week on Thursday-morning, with different methods, topics, and themes, can motivate the students to learn English in fun way. And of course the volunteers and interns from Holland bring positive motivation to the students in NMC club, because directly they can practice the knowledge that they already learned. They can really speak with foreign people, which is a great challenge!

For about a month we’ve had to without any extra hands but fortunately since mid-February four new students have arrived from the Netherlands. Packed with enthusiasm and highly motivated, the ladies have had their first meeting with the Kolewa children and the Indonesian team members. For the coming months, we have prepared a schedule which matches their internship assignments and their interests as much as possible. However, internship also means being employable, wherever necessary. This could be teaching children to brush their teeth in the morning, taking food to the hospital around noon or helping out in the kitchen.

Mara Wesselink, Nutrition and Dietetics, Hanze University of Applied Sciences.  Two days a week, Mara can be found in the kitchen of Rumah Bicara. She wants to learn everything there is to know about Indonesian ingredients and dishes and do grocery shopping at the market. In turn, she will use her knowledge to give Heldi advice on how to serve even healthier meals to children who need medical help. On the remaining days, Mara will work on her internship assignment.

Shannon Spork, Social Work at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, arrived a week before the other three students. She feels right at home at Kolewa and has shown and shared her creativity. The children at Rumah Bicara have already made some colourful craft works. In the weekend of 18 and 19 february, she accompanied team member Widia on a trip to Bima (Dompu Sumbawa). They made house calls and took three babies with them to Bali for cleft lip surgery. A remarkable and unforgettable experience.

Nadine van Bennekom, Social Work, Hanze University of Applied Sciences. Even before she left for Bali, she already knew a lot about the Kolewa Foundation as it was her sister Lychelle who made the wonderful film about our activities last year. First, Nadine went to Karangasem to attend speech therapy and sign language lessons to deaf children. Her school assignment is drawing up a treatment plan for a traumatised child. The coming period, she will first monitor the children at Rumah Bicara and then make a choice.

Adinda Hanny, Social Work and Social Services, NHL University of Applied Sciences. In combination with her internship assignment, Adinda will be employable for three to four days a week. During her first days at Kolewa, she went to the Nitti Mandala Club and the slum school to teach English. In the afternoon, Adinda and Nadine took the Kolewa family to the park in Denpasar for some fresh air.
From the Netherlands we wish the four students every success. We’re looking forward to their experiences and reports in due course and we’ll definitely share them in a blog.

We found him about two years ago, in front of his humble house near Lovina. He had been there for a number of years, utterly miserable, with a leg that was slowly dying off. He’d had an accident and the injury he sustained had hardly been treated. Even for us laymen it was immediately clear: the leg had to be amputated. 

Together we went through trying times. Rumah Bicara took Putu and his mother in and surgery was planned. It was the hardest decision that this young man ever had to make in his life. Both physically and mentally, Putu went through a very rough time. Although the Kolewa Foundation staff and volunteers were always there for him, ultimately, Putu had to do it himself: picking up where he left off and thinking in terms of possibilities.

 And he managed!

He took an English course, got a prosthesis and even a job at a second-hand bookshop in Ubud. Putu blossomed, had lots of contacts with tourists and earned a modest wage.

And now fate strikes again. Due to collapsing tourism on account of the eruption risk of Mount Agung, Ubud is getting abandoned. Shops are closing their doors and their staff is sent home. This also goes for Putu. On 1 January of the new year, he travelled back to Buleleng, to a family where he’s welcome, but only to a certain extent. His father has a second wife and a young family so he’s not exactly thrilled to take in his disabled problem child.

The worst thing for Putu is the loss of his mobility. Apart from a wage and board and lodging, his employer in Ubud gave him an adapted scooter. He regularly used it to come to Kolewa Foundation for a pep talk, a bit of attention and some warmth. The scooter was left in Ubud. Despite our efforts to buy it, the former employer was not prepared to negotiate.

Putu is desperate, disappointed but still hopeful again. Dealing with this much bad luck is not easy but he’s hoping to get support from you and us. 

What is needed? 
About IDR 5,700,000 for a second-hand scooter 
IDR 2,500,000 for the adjustments and the stabilisers 
IDR 750,000 for petrol so that he can go out and look for a new job.

 ( 675 usd / 850 AUD / 555 euro) Don’t turn your back on Putu and give him a chance of a future once again! Kolewa Foundation will keep guiding him through his choices once you have enabled this young man to be mobile again thanks to an adapted scooter.

You can boost his spirit by using the DONATE-button on this site.