Preschool, Bali, 9500 Euros

Report

It took only a few months to renovate and extend the school in Bukti, Bali. 
At an opening ceremony on 5 April 2008 the key to the new school was officially handed over to the head of the school. 

The building has been completely renovated, and an extra classroom was built so that there are now two nursery classrooms and a sanitary area with two toilets. In addition, a small room for the nursery teachers, a sort of office, has been built. 

At the back of the school a large space has been levelled and set up as a playground. This place is safe, as children cannot run onto the street from there. As the building costs turned out to be lower than estimated, the donations for the refurbishment also covered the costs of various pieces of play equipment for the playground. 

The refurbishment was led by Nico Kennis – who was doing the work free of charge – and by Nico and Nellie’s local helper Kadek, who has been trained by Nico as a building manager. Eleven men from the village carried out the work. This provided their families with an income at a time when this happened to be even more needed than usual. The sea was too high during the first months of this year to go out to sea in their fishing boats. 
Taking a building into use is always an official event in Bali. In the Hindu religion there is an Upacara (ceremony) for everything, and therefore also for the opening of the school. It was a beautiful event, attended by many people, particularly mothers with their children. The mayor gave a speech and so did the district head of education and a few other important people from the village. The name Moments of Joy was mentioned many times, as were Nico and Nellie Kennis and their team led by Kadek. The local press ran very positive articles on the event too. 

The number of pupils is rising as a result of the larger space and the beautiful new look of the school. There are now four instead of three permanent nursery teachers, and a start has been made to train two trainees to become permanent staff members. 

Bukti is in the northernmost part of Bali, more or less in the middle of the north coast, and 18 km to the east of the former capital Singaraja. 
Air Sanih – the neighbouring village - and Bukti make up one municipality. Sometimes it is given on a map as Bukit. It is located in one of the poorest areas of Bali. There is no industry; the people survive on a bit of fishing, and if there is work to do somewhere they show up quickly so that they can buy some rice. 

A Dutch couple, Nellie and Nico Kennis, moved to Bukti when they retired and have been living there for five years now. This enthusiastic pair have used their own funds to help many village children with school fees and clothing, and have regularly paid for medical help for seriously ill villagers. They have supported the fixing up of the primary school. They do not have the financial means to sponsor larger projects. Nonetheless, they were able to start a preschool in July 2007. It is the only preschool in the municipality. The school started with 10 children; that quickly grew to 20, and now there are 30. That is the maximum possible for the space; still, there are many parents who would like very much to have their child in the school as well. 
The preschool is housed in a ramshackle building. Nellie and Nico would like very much to reconstruct the existing little building and turn it into a real school. That would also make it possible to take in more children, at least twice as many. (For comparison: the primary school has 175 pupils.) In terms of organization and teachers, more children are not a problem. The teachers are paid from the school fees. An amount of € 1.00 per month is asked per child, and there are 3 teachers at the moment. They have not been trained as teachers as such, but they do a good job and they earn a monthly salary of € 10.00 for half days. (The school is only in the morning because it is too hot for the children in the afternoons and they must take a nap since the days begin very early.) The village community also contributes to the costs of the school so that there is some money for materials. If the number of pupils increases, it will not be a problem to find new teachers. 

Nico was an architect and contractor before he retired. The rebuilding of the preschool can be done under his guidance by local people, which will mean extra income for a number of families. The cost of the rebuilding comes to € 7,500.00. 

Totaal € 7500,-- 

adopted by Fondation Les Pâquerettes

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