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VSL SiloLogistics helps build school on Bali.
Each calendar year VSL donates cash to a charity. Last year the money went to KiKa (see our December Newsletter) and it has now been announced which charity will receive help from VSL in 2011. A new school is being built in Ubung, a district in the city of Denpasar on Bali, Indonesia, for hundreds of children of very poor parents. Cash has run out however and construction is about to be halted. VSL transferred the funds directly and these have been added to the proceeds of an impressive series of fund raising actions initiated in the Netherlands by retired police officer Henny van Ockenburg.
Henny knows all the details of realization and development of the school which was founded by a minister and his wife from East Java. 'My wife and I often go to Indonesia to visit a good friend of ours, the Reverend Leatomu who used to serve as a merchant marine minister in Rotterdam. He put us into contact with this school founded especially for children of parents who simply don’t have the money to pay for their children’s education. Families living in slums make ends meet by collecting plastic: five kilos gets them € 1.50. We visited these people in their "homes" and saw them having fried fish for dinner, but the fish was no more than a head and bones. The living conditions of these people are really horrendous.'
'The school, which was in a shed that doubled as church, is basically the victim of its own success', Henny recounts. 'They started with 40 pupils and this number rose to 200. An extension of sorts was planned, but the land owner wanted to see cash. The minister and his wife decided to commission a structural engineer to design and build a new, sturdy school building / church. We have been working in the Netherlands, in and around our village of 's Gravendeel, and have raised some € 5,000.-..Their target is € 14,000.- however; so the magnificent sum donated by VSL is really welcome!'
July 2011