The Foundation “Education Project Bali” was founded in 2010 by Tjeerd van Dijk, together with two friends. For many years, Tjeerd has been visiting Bali on his holidays, and was not only struck by the beauty and unique culture of this “Island of the Gods’’, but especially by the people. In all those years he has come to know many families in different villages, and was touched by the difficult circumstances in which many of them live.
He was also impressed by the way the population deals with these difficulties and the poverty, and how supportive they are towards each other. There is a high sense of community support in Bali, and the Hindu religion plays a significant role in this. If a family has little or no food, they will not be left on their own, but will receive help from the community.
Many families do not have sufficient means to enable their children to go to school. Even the community support cannot always solve this problem. This is the reason for establishing the Foundation “Education Project Bali”. With the help of sponsors we want to offer these families a helping hand.
Although basic education in Bali is free, there are many (obligatory) expenses for the parents: Money for books, for the school uniform, sports clothes/shoes and for transport to the school. All together this amounts to approx. 100 euro per year.
For families that sometimes do not earn more than a couple of euros a day, 100 euro is a lot of money. Because for most parents the education of their children is very important, they often go to the bank for a loan. The problem is that they have difficulty in paying back the loan (and interest) and thus their debt gets higher every year. It is also quite ‘’normal’’ for children to go and work in their spare time, e.g. selling souvenirs on the beach, to earn a little money for the family.
This is what our Foundation wants to prevent. For the relatively modest amount of 100 euro per year, you can help a child go to school, and prevent the family from building up this debt, or from keeping the child at home.
Because don't we all agree;