YKIP began its education scholarship program with YKIP/KIDS, assisting the children of the Bali bomb victims. However, it is very apparent that there are many indirect victims of the economic down turn that followed the bomb blast. As things stand now, many children have the potential to become school drop-outs due to the inability to pay, and will grow up with an uncertain future. The KEMBALI FUND is intended to help these children. As many of you probably know, KEMBALI means "return" in Indonesian - in this case, a "return to school".

Many people in Bali, particularly in the regency of Gianyar, worked in the tourism sector prior to October 2002. Not only were those who worked in hotels and restaurants affected, but men, women and children who make handicrafts or are in the garment industry lost their livelihood when the Kuta bomb blast happened. Almost every family in Gianyar has a major income earner who has been laid off or has no work due to the economic depression. "We have nothing", says one grandmother, who cooks over an open wood-burning stove, "except this simple hut on a tiny plot of land. My grandson, Wayan, used to work in a car rental agency but was laid off last year. His salary paid for his two younger siblings' school fees and uniforms. He's picked up a few odd jobs here and there, but it's not enough for school and now Made and Komang cannot go to school anymore." In Gianyar alone there are over 2,500 children who are on the brink of dropping out of school due to the inability of the family to pay the school fees. We are looking for donors to sponsor all or part of the rest of each child's education (or until the family's situation improves).

In Indonesia, since 1999, the government has mandated that each child must go to school for nine years. However, too many children are now dropping out of school even before they reach the end of Junior High School; some even are quitting in the primary grades.

We at YKIP are quite concerned about this phenomenon and have begun a new scholarship program for children in primary and secondary schools (elementary through junior high school). Pupils who cannot continue their studies due to financial inability shall be sponsored until the end of their junior high school career. We are looking for donors who would like to sponsor a child through to the end of her/his Junior High School years, although any size donation is most welcome. The reason we are asking for donations only through Junior High is so that we can ensure that as many children as possible return to school. However, if someone would like to sponsor a child through her/his entire secondary schooling, that can easily be arranged.


We have begun this program in the regency of Gianyar, which has a population of 416,728 or approximately 104,000 nuclear families. In 2003, there were 4,234 families living below the poverty line. In 2006, this has increased to over 7,000 families.  In 2006, the criteria by which the  Indonesian government defined  "Poverty" are as follows:
1. The floor of the home is made of earth, bamboo or cheap wood.
2.  The living area is less than 8 square meters.
3.  Cooking fuel is wood, charcoal or kerosene.
4.  The family can only afford to eat animal protein (including eggs) once a week.
5.  The family can only afford to buy one set of clothing per person per year
6.   Each family member is only able to eat once or twice a day
7.  They don’t own anything worth over Rp 500,000 (US $60) that is easily sellable nor do they have a bank account.
8. The walls are made of bamboo, wood or poor quality materials.
9. There are no toilet facilities.
10. There is no electricity.
11. The water source comes from a well, an unprotected spring, river or rainwater.
12.They cannot afford to pay for medicines at a Puskesmas (Community Health Clinic) or polyclinic.
13  Farmers have land less than half a hectare.   For those working as a farmhand, construction laborer, fisherperson, gardener or other work have an income of less than Rp 600,000 (US $70) per month.
14.  Highest education of head of family is 6th grade. 

Each of these categories has a point value and each family is then “graded” and put into one of three categories:  extremely poor, poor, and almost poor. These are simply guidelines that the social workers use to determine who lives below the poverty line.  In the urban areas, most households will have electricity, and even in most villages in Bali there is electricity..  Most households have a maximum of 450 watts (as a comparison in the West 25,000 watts and up are the norm for a middle class home), which means they use very low wattage bulbs (not good for children to study by).

In most families, only one or two family members will be working.   A family of four spends at least Rp 450,000 a month on food; this is the bare minimum.   Religious and community obligations would account for at least another Rp 150,000 and more during the holy day seasons.   Electricity (450 watts is the norm) runs about Rp 20,000.  As you can see, if the average income is RP 600,000, then there is nothing left over for education, health care or clothing.

GNOTA handing out school supplies

As can be seen by the accompanying photographs, most of these families live in abject conditions.

The regional government is doing what it can with the little that it has. The Indonesian National Foster Parents Plan (GN-OTA) program's coffers have become quite dry since the economic crisis began in 1998. Many of the "foster parents" were banks, successful businesses and independently wealthy locals. All of those sources have been forced to withdraw their support as their disposable income has been dramatically reduced in the last five years.

The GN-OTA program used to be able to fully fund the students, but now can only pay Rp 90,000/year for Primary School students and Rp 120,000/year for Junior High Students. As you can see in the table below, this falls far below the mark. Families aspire to send their children to government schools, as the quality of education is usually better than in private schools. If a child fails to get into a state school, then s/he will go to a private school, where the fees are slightly higher.

The table below will give you an idea of how much it costs for schooling, including clothing, shoes, books and stationary. These figures are what it costs to school a child in Gianyar; costs are higher in the capital city of Denpasar and its environs (which is where most of the Bali bomb victim children go to school). For the first stage of this project, we worked together with the Gianyar Sejahtera staff as fieldworkers. As we procure more funding and are able to assist more children, then we will progressivley bring additional fieldworkers on board (and they shall need to be paid). Gianyar Sejahtera (Social Welfare for Gianyar) worked on BUIP (Bali Urban Infrastructure Project) with the World Bank in 2003 and did a poverty mapping of the entire regency.   This survey was updated in 2005.   The data collection was done by GNOTA  fieldworkers, who visited every home and photographed them. All fieldworkers are to be given a small stipend to cover transport costs, which is prorated to Rp 30,000 per student.  The head of the Gianyar Sejahtera team is I Nyoman Puja and he works tirelessly in going from house to house in villages that are far from each other and over rough terrain.
As of July 2006 (the beginning of the semester) we are supporting  360 children with GNOTA/Gianyar Sejahtera.
In July 2006, we added 32 children from Pemuteran, North Bali  who are going to a special Junior High school that meets after regular school hours.  This is similar to a degree equivalency degree.  
Also in July 2006, we added 105 children in the Badung regency (Kuta, Jimbaran and Kapal sub districts).  The head of the fieldwork team from GNOTA Badung is I Wayan Antara. 

We are also supporting the three daughters of Taufik Sinaga (a volunteer in Aceh who died from malaria), although one is still a toddler and not in school yet; and three other children with private donors.

	Annual school tuition fee	Uniforms, hat, shoes, socks, book bag	Books	Stationary, pens, etc	Snack Money (Rp 2,000/day primary and Rp 3,000/day junior high x 270 days)	Transport money for GS staff	TOTAL
Government Primary School	Waived	Rp 259,400	Rp 240,000	Rp 73,700	Rp 480,000	Rp 360,000	Rp 1,413,100
Government Junior High School	Rp 480,000	Rp 275,200	Rp 240,000	Rp 81,700	Rp 720,000	Rp 360,000	Rp 2,516,900

Bank Permata Tbk Denpasar Branch 601 Jl. Dewi Sartika Kav. 88 Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia SWIFT CODE: BBB AIDJA Account No. US $: 5802 163 330 Account No. Rupiah: 5801 261 460

Please advise us via email of your transfer (info@ykip.org) so that we may verify and acknowledge receipt of your donation. Please include the following information with your donation:

Name or Company (if applicable)
Address
Telephone number
Email Address
Sending Bank
Date of Transfer
Amount of Transfer
Account funds were sent to (US Dollar or Indonesian Rupiah)

Thank you very much for contributing to our efforts.

L I N K :

Bali Dreaming - www.balidreaming.com.au Bali Dreaming is currently sponsoring 40 of our KEMBALI children and made a beautiful short film about this program (called BALI DREAMING) with Seri Films of Bali. We encourage you to go to their website; thank you to Bali Dreaming!       To see more photographs of Heidi Hornberger's site visit, click here.     Sister School Program