Educate and Empower 35 East Bali Mountain Children

Every year from September to November is great for our students but this year has been exceptional, as we report below.

Student Council (OSIS) establishment, 21st September

A new initiative of EBPP students who, through their EMpower program, decided to seek solutions to many problems, especially school dropout and child marriage, that still happen in their schools, and were inspired by the Regional Children Forum of Karangasem, FAD (Forum Anak Daerah), to form a student council after the FAD presentation last April about children’s rights convention and children’s organizations, including OSIS. In order to make a memorable election, the EMpower Team initiated a camping weekend, located at Candi Gora Temple, Tianyar Timur on Saturday 21st September, when all EBPP high school students gathered for their first camping activities, starting with cleaning the area, praying and then, erecting their tents. As this was their first time camping, they really struggled – but had great fun - building the tents. The weather was much hotter than their mountain village, BUT the sun’s sting couldn’t lower their spirits!

Mount Barker Community School (MBCC) Annual Visit, 24th September

This year we took their 9 students and 3 teachers to EBPP Pengalusan School. They divided the activities into four groups, rotating every 30 minutes. Group one: Guessing games using play dough, guessing who am I? and other fun games played with artificial hands (tiny hands), challenging them to play ball and tie shoelaces with these artificial hands!! Group 2 was twister games and board games, dealing with numbers. In Group 3 was playing the flute and fun Uno. Finally, group 4 was a sports activity. The most fantastic activity though was creating EBPP students’ individual profiles! EBPP students then taught bamboo weaving, music and Balinese traditional dance to show and share their talents with MBCC students, especially in bamboo basket weaving skills.

Ari Rudenko’ Prehistoric Body Theater, 14th – 15th October

Ari Rudenko, artistic director and founder of Prehistoric Body Theatre introduced the dinosaur dance to our students. He and his amazing Indonesian dance team through gave a 2 day workshop illustrating and teaching EBPP students prehistoric dances created by Ari to accompany his Ghosts of Hell Creak historic documentary – a dance about a prehistoric animal (acheroraptor).

ISKL (International School Kuala Lumpur) 22nd - 23rd October

Tuesday 22nd October, the first of a 2 day sharing visit by 16 tenth grade students and 3 teachers from ISKL, led by Jeffrey Samson who’d visited earlier this year. We took them to Pengalusan School where ISKL students divided into three groups: one learnt music with EBPP’s Volcano Band, another practicing traditional Balinese dance, and the 3rd were taught fine bamboo basket weaving by our girls and the coarser weave by our boys. They rotated every 30 minutes so all got involved. On 23rd October, ISKL students piled into the back of EBPP’s 4WD pickups for the 25 minute trip to Jatituhu school - located on Mount Abang slopes - and directly got to work with EBPP students repairing steep steps from the road to the school, repairing the school ceiling, painting all classrooms and the library, all materials costs sponsored by ISKL! Language was a challenge due to EBPP students’ limited English - but they managed to communicate for cooperation. Teamwork with the groups and students on different activities ended with a job super well done!!

10 Bali Hindu Temples “Tirta Yatra” 2-days Tour

On October 25-26, 2019, a total of 210 students, tutors and EBPP staff took a road trip in 6 buses around Bali island to hold joint prayers at 10 main Hindu temples: Silayukti, Goa Lawah, Sakenan, Uluwatu, Tanah Lot, Rambut Siwi, Jaya Prana, Pulaki, Melanting, and Ponjok Batu Temples. The field trip was amazing and tiring at the same time, we’re still happy and enjoyed every moment at each temple. At 3.15pm on 26th October, we arrived at EBPP Ban Office and went to our respective home happily. This spiritual field trip gave us a very special and unforgettable experience and we’re looking forward for the next one.

We could not have achieved the above without your amazing support, Global Giving crowdfunding donors. Please continue your support and help us to keep teaching, empowering and motivating our Jatituhu and Pengalusan students. Donate on #Giving Tuesday, 3rd December and get donations MATCHED by GlobalGiving!

All students from elementary through senior high school had done their semester test by May 20^th-29^th 2019, received their school report books on June 14^th 2019, and their new semester for 2019/2020 academic year officially started on July 15^th 2019.

In our high school students’ EMpower extracurricular classes, from June to end of July their key modules were job and university readiness, creative thinking skills, mind mapping of economic potential in Bali and Literacy information. For their field trip on June 28^th, the students had a study visits to Yayasan Kopernik and ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art), both in Ubud, 80 kilometres away! This trip aimed to give them real experience in learning and sharing their knowledge. Some students also gave presentations about the product they have created from Bamboo in order to reduce plastic used. On August 8^thPengalusan students, together with their peers from Bunga and Cegi schools had a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) at EBPP Ban office to propose their school regulations concept they’ve made to ensure gender equality and reduce sexual harassment through a PowerPoint presentation to all teachers, facilitated by EMpower instructors. Such a brilliant idea!  

In addition to their regular lessons, many students were focusing on the activities for their stage performances for celebrating IndonesiaIndependence Day on August 17^th.  In both Jatituhu and Pengalusan schools some students were preparing and practicing their Balinese dance and music performances. Such hard work? Not really because they all love this special day each year when they get the chance to perform in front of their parents, communities and all their peers!

On August 17^th, all Jatituhu students celebrating the Independence Day in EBPP Daya Bamboo Centrewere transported by trucks rented by EBPP, together with their parents, and with Pengalusan and students from EBPP’s 4 other schools,all students joined the activities, which started with the formal flag hoisting ceremony, followed by sportsand other competitions, and then came the amazing stage performances. The sport competitions included sack race, Tug-of-war, squeezing balloons between 2 people whilst running, , driving the ball with a bottle tied to their waist, followed bya drawing competitionand English words whisper competition. 

When the results were compiled for all competitions, Jatituhu School took 2nd place and Pengalusan got the first place among EBPP’s six schools! Hearty congratulation! Their stage performanceswere also outstanding, with a talented girl from Jatituhu performing Balinese traditionalwelcome dance “Sekar Jagad”, while Pengalusan girls performed “Burat Wangi” dance and “Belibis” (bird dance), that were truly outstanding! EBPP volcano Band (5 of the 6 being Pengalusan students) showed off their music talent by performing their songs entitled “Stop harassment” and “Bully”. Those songs are quite famous among EBPP. They also performed some very popular Balinese songs like “Kidang Rengas” (wild deer) “Kidung Kasmaran” (love song), and “Garang Kuluk” (being chased by a dog). They also performing “Mejangeran” Balinese youth social dance which performed in a group of female and male students from Pengalusan School. Well done! All students performed very confidently to entertain hundreds of spectators.

Thank you to all the donors through GlobalGiving to keep supporting our students in East Bali so that they are able to enjoy learning in EBPP and develop their skills for a better future.

• List_of_Activities_for_74th_Independence_Day_17th_August_19.pdf (PDF)