Jessica Luo, Gabriella S Hendarto

Bali is well-known as an earthly paradise, thanks to its white sandy beaches, tropical landscapes, the beauty of Hindu temples and its inhabitants’  reputation for kindness and tolerance, and pretty neat urban setting compared to another big cities in Indonesia.

 

However, behind the beautiful mask of Bali, we believe there are still less fortunate people that are almost invisible. Lucky we were able to find them, living at slums behind massive buildings, got evicted from time to time as a consequence of occupying government land. Just because they are invisible it doesn’t mean they are not exist.

 

We targeted 400 people who are working as garbage men and also homeless, to get helped and had 14 days to collect donations from various cities in Indonesia at our most hectic schedule, and luckily we have amazing volunteers who helped make this whole event possible. As a result, we managed to collect IDR 3,7 Million in cash donation, 1,300 clothes, and 20 volunteers for distribution on D-Day.

 

We visited 5 big slums in the city; Renon, Dewi Sri, TPA Monang-Maning, TPA Suwung, and TPA Serangan and shared rice box, bread, snack, mineral water, and clothes as a package in a goodie bag for each person. Everything went well at each site, except we had one moment at TPA Serangan where many people found our vehicle and were gathering around us and quite forcing us to give them donation, some even ask for more. But we handled it quite well and immediately headed for the second site at that day.

 

We consider ourselves as the lucky ones who got the chance to see their big smile and listened to their stories that touched our heart. Looking at them, ignites the will in ourselves to help more people like them.

 

We hope what we worked on in these few days could inspire more people to care about others and show the people in need that there are still many people out there who love and care for them. Hopefully in the future they will also share good deeds and turn their life to a better one.