When Don and I first came to Bali we loved the land, the people, the colorful sights, and we made friends with one Balinese young man, by the name of Mad Widia and subsequently with his family.

On that first trip, Made took us into his home, dressed us in traditional clothing, took us to the Temple and offered us rice and vegetables to eat.

And Made took me to a seer, a man about 115 years old. After looking through into smoking incense through a hollow reed, he told me that we would be living in Bali someday. Now, ten years later, we find ourselves living in Bali, which he knew over 10 years ago.

On that first visit to Made’s home we were offered a meal of rice and vegetables and coconut curry. It was such a good meal which they themselves never got to eat but once a week. But they wanted to give their best to us, their guest. Later I found out that they helped Balinese people too.

A lawyer now, a poor Balinese student then, once was invited to stay at Made’s house for four months during his studies, as he did not have the funds himself at that time. Although they were poor and had little extra to give, they did. Made’s family is very gracious, with a deep sense of ethics and a desire to help others, regardless of their status and means.

After a few years, we decided to help our Balinese friend Made go through training to be a Tour Guide, a training which took him one year. He now has a wife and three children, and he now can support his family with grace. He is still living in his family compound, his parents are gone and Made Widia has become the head of the family now.

We are currently working on helping children go to school and finish their education:



When we started to lead seminars in Bali, our group participants wanted to help as well. One year, our seminar group decided to collect enosugh money to help three children go through school and get a better education.

We now would like to extend that opportunity to help to you as well.  You may wish to help others, but you want to make sure your donation goes into the right hands.

All too often big organizations use up a large portion of the donations received, just to maintain the organization and advertisement budget for it.

SCHOOL FUNDS:

We have created a fund for children of poor families, who have a child that shows very good scholastic promises. Higher school education for the children is a way for the family to move out of the cycle of poverty. Often the poorer families are not able to pay the monthly school fees and are not able to provide for the books and the school uniform. All too often find the children are forced to end school at too early of an age.

With your donation we will find good students from poor families, and will allow them to complete their education, or even go onto higher training.

Until not too long ago, everything in Bali was organic. Everything was wrapped in either banana leaves, or other natural products, which could be tossed into the garden, given to the pigs to eat, or otherwise be thrown into the catch-all Rivers, which took all organic trash out to sea without long range threats to the environment.

With the advent of plastic, and the globalization of western products, and the lack of funding for local trash service, we now find that Balinese are still throwing the leftovers, their trash, which is now largely consisting of plastic products, on the ground, or burning it, which not only burden the environment, but also threatens their health.

Up to this day, Balinese are throwing their trash into the river. During the rainy season the trash is swept into the ocean, threatening to suffocate the coral reefs.

We still don’t have trash pick-up in Bondalem, in the village that surrounds ShangriLa Oceanside Retreat, which has about 3000 inhabitants. When we moved to Bondalem in 2005 we were facing a bit of trash everywhere. But instead of waiting for the BIG BROTHER to do it, or just sitting around and complain, we decided to do something.

The Mayor had tried to get every household to pay an equivalent of 50 cents per month. Not much by our standarts, but in a village where 80% of the villagers are unemployed, that is a lot.

Furthermore, no one was willing to put out money for a project that has never been tested. Who knows, they wondered who really gets the money. So we started out to set an example. by cleaning our beach and all the walk ways surrounding ShangriLa. Once our neighboring fishermen, their children, and our many employees would get used to a clean environment, they too may be more inclined to keep Bali beautiful.

After all we too had to be told not to litter, and there are still many signs along all US highways, that remind everyone that littering will be fined. We too are throwing our garbage into the sea, as still done in New York, where daily shiploads of garbage are being unloaded into the ocean. Low and behold, everyone loved it. The Balinese are an aesthetic people, but habits are slow to change. No trash service makes it hard to keep everything clean.

Two of our neighbors and us donated money to have the river cleaned monthly. It is about a length of 150 meters/yards, where we placed a blockade to catch the trash before the river flows into the ocean. This blockade stops a lot of the trash, which we then have picked up and transported to a landfill.

For about 50 € per year from each of us,three parties in all, we were able to clean the mouth of the river effectively, so that most all the trash from this one river is now being transported to Singaraja’s landfill, a larger town about 1 hour away.

Next, we cleaned the street that leads to ShangriLa, a longer road that goes from the ocean to the Bazaar. And we had our windy walk way to ShangriL cleaned daily.

Also all our staff worked on cleaning the entire beach in front of ShangriLa ,. Allof its trash gone now, will set an example of beauty and serenity to the children who come and play and all the Balinese who walk by.

We also distributed 100 Children’s books to 9 nine schools, to teach children about recycling.

The teachers are very eager to help and they do use these books, which teach not to throw trash into the river or street, and instead shows the power for recycling. It is written in three languages: Balinese, Indonesian and English. However, we need trashcans at the schools, so that there is a way to separate organic trash, in order that children are able to follow through with what they learn in their books.

At ShangriLa we have started two community projects in Bondalem.

We are working on the Trash Clean Up project in two stages.