In Reply to: Sponsor Child Care pack posted by Lisa B on Friday, 1. June 2007 at 13:59 Bali Time:
Original posted by Thorsten on Tuesday, 14. March 2006
I sponsor two kids since two years in Bali now, in January I was visiting them for the first time.
I brought some gifts for them from Germany of course, in Bali I had to realise it was a waste of money and I will explain you why.
The 46 Euro original Adidas shirt from Germany (made in Indonesia) will not make any difference for them, the boy will be simply happy for a new shirt, but for the same value you can easily buy ten shirts there, or maybe some other useful things.
When I was there, after meeting the families of the kids, we took them to Singaraja, although living only 10 min from Singaraja, both kids have never been there, the first time in their lives they got into a city - almost a cultural shock for them.
We went at first to Hardy's, the biggest shopping centre in Singaraja and the eyes got bigger and bigger, the boy took spontaneously my hand, no idea where to look at first, mouth and eyes wide open.
With the help of the staff and some patience we dressed up the girl at first, she felt a bit shy and insecure, but I realised instantly - she is a girl and like all girls she is interested in fashion, so although being very humble, from the expression of her face, she was not very pleased by the clothes provided to her (under consideration the 50% discount) ;-)
Practically and cheap was obviously not, what she was dreaming of, so I intervened a bit, let her walk around and look for herself, she was pleased by a combination (girly stuff) and a dress, very proud of herself in front of the mirror - just like little girls everywhere, of course I bought it for her.
The boy seemed to be satisfied with everything and was very excited, here I had to intervene again, I felt he would need something better than the short pants and a crapy t-shirt he was already wearing, so we found a nice ¾ jeans for him a decent shirt and a pair of black sneakers.
We went to the section with school items to select the things for the kids, we bought heaps of things and also a backpack for the girl with a Barbie doll painted on it (for the boy I had brought a bag from Germany)
I took almost longer to get the bill for our shopping than the shopping itself and with another special discount on Sukadana's customer card I paid less than 500.000 Rps for all - a joke! ( 40 Euro's )
After ice-cream for the kids and water for us, we were going to the local market to get the gifts for the families.
I told Sukadana that he would know at best, what would the families need and he started to negotiate with a local trader, he told her my intention and we got a special price even below the usual price for locals.
He asked me what I would like to spend and since I was clueless, I said something about 1 mio for both families. ( 1 mio idr is 90 Euro's )
Here a kilo from this, there two kilo of that, heaps of groceries, spices, dry fish, whatever, still have the shopping list but too long to post it here, the kids were almost to freak out - they could not believe it.
Two big boxes with all this stuff, which would last for three month for a family.
We added 100 kg of rice, coffee, hygienic articles, washing powder, toothpaste and some more and I had already doubts to get all the stuff into this little Suzuki - all together I paid 680.000 Rps for both families!!!
( 50 Euro's )
Trust me, there is no other gift which could be more appreciated, nothing bought for expensive money in Europe, Australia, USA or wherever will provide more happiness than this, the value for your money is incredible with some local assistance, this support will take a lot of economical pressure from this families and you are also doing something to support the local economy.
Another important aspect for me is, the people will share this, will mean also the uncle, nephew, the neighbour will benefit, by this the status of your sponsored family will improve within the local community, it will also give them some proud and dignity.
For me it was a great experience this day with Sukadana and I have learned a lot, after seeing with my own eyes what they are doing over there I decided to increase my personal input.
Just another hint for all out there, education is the key to improve something on a long term, give there kids access to information.
I brought two laptops for them and I know there are a lot more used laptops catching the dust somewhere, why don't you take these thingies to Bali - they will be very appreciated there and you don't have to listen to the nagging of your kids anymore due 'this old crap' where the graphic card is too slow to allow a decent online gaming?
Best regards
Thorsten