The Kids!!!It has been a great start to the year for everyone at Balilife!In January we had a great night out sponsored by ChristineGraham and friends at the DEVDAN Show! This was atheatrical and acrobatic drama performance with thepurpose being to give children knowledge about the varietyof tradtional cultures in Indonesia with its many differentlanguages, dances and ethnicities.

In Febuary we had another fun day out at Karma Beach,courtesy of Jonathan Gray. As well as having a deliciouslunch of seafood and pizza, the time was filled with waterballoons, swimming, painting and much to the excitementof kids and staff alike, a trip down to the beach with anincredible outdoor elevator over the edge of Karma’s cliff!The kids had a fabulous day and we are thankful foreveryone who was involved in organising this Beach Day.

March is back to focus on school with Grade 9 havingexams this month, all are studying hard. As well as this, theteenagers, Juven, Riska and Olan are in preparation of theirSenior High School Grade 10-12 and looking very muchforward to this new part of their school life!

NYEPI Day

NYEPI is the Day of Silence. This took place on the 23rdMarch this year from 6:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. the followingmorning. The night before the streets are filled with giantpaper-mache and bamboo sculpted monsters which wardoff evil spirits. Proudly constructed by the local Balineseyouth, these larger-than-life creatures are known as ogoh-ogoh. In Hindu tradition at sunset, a procession carries theogoh-ogoh through the main part of the village where evilspirits are said to gather. Accompanied by a hauntingcombination of clanging cymbals, gongs, and drums, thisloud clashing and clattering noise they belive helps to scareaway any evil that may be lurking about. Upon reaching thenearest beach, the ogoh-ogohs are set ablaze. Thefollowing morning brings Nyepi Day. They believe that if theisland of Bali remains quiet and dark throughout Nyepi, itwill fool any lurking demons into thinking that no one ishome on the island of Bali and that they should visitelsewhere. The idea is to avoid the attention of the evil gods,meaning good luck and peace for the Balinese New Year tocome. For tourists, Nyepi Day means a day of 24-hour

NewsletterJanuary - March 2012

www.balilife.org

The DEVDAN show

Ogoh-Ogoh

prohibition and restricted activities as no one is allowed toleave their resort or make any noise or have any light. Allrestaurants, businesses and even the international airportthroughout the island are closed on Nyepi Day. I will bestaying at Balilife with the kids, attempting to entertain thelittle people. Could be an interesting experience on theIsland of Bali over the next 2 days.

CounsellingThis year Balilife has introduced counselling workshops andindividual sessions for the kids. This is run by EmilyDebenham, a social worker from Australia who is currentlystudying her masters degree in Counselling. The purposeof this program is to build self esteem and resilience, teachstrengths, value and worth, and to encourage and supporteach child in their future hopes, goals and dreams. This isdone through play, art, creative expression and narrativelifestory work. All the kids are enjoying the workshops andcan’t wait to have their turn for individual counsellingsessions!

Star KidsStar Kids has started again!! This program is to give the localcommuity’s children some fun time with English lesson. Our

children get to invite their friends from school to learntogether with Bali Life Kids every Wednesday afternoon atthe home. We can have up to 30 kids at a time! Thisprogram is run by Emily Debenham, and our ongoing teamof indivual and team volunteers. Special thanks to YWAMwho have been invovled on a regular basis keeping learningenglish fun and full of laughter!

Farming/Sustainability ProjectsAfter five months of organically feeding the pigs we boughtlast year we have now killed one pig to fill our freezer withthree months supply of Pork!

We also had a generous donation from a caring supporterfrom Uzbekistan, who donated a whole cow! He provided aliving cow to be butchered for our food supply. Now ourfreezer is filled with more than 60kgs meat and is beingenjoyed immensly!

Our Food Scrap System has just started this month as partof our self- sustainability project. This is used for compostingfor our veggie garden, feeding the chickens and feeding thepigs. Thanks to Intercontinental who are willing to worktogether with us on this system and be a big support to BaliLife.

The Star Kids

Brad and Siska LittleFOUNDERS AND PROJECT DIRECTORS

email: info@balilife.orgcell: Brad +62 (0)815 5800 6256Siska +62 (0)815 5818 7765

David HamiltonCHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, AUSTRALIARegistered Foundation Number: INC9888674

Eko SiswantoCHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, INDONESIARegistered Foundation Number: AHU-4948

If you would like to support our work financially please use the following account details:Australia - GENERAL ACCOUNT: BSB 032576, ACC# 286642, BUILDING ACCOUNT: BSB 032576 ACC# 286650. BRANCH ADDRESS FOR BOTH ACCOUNTS: Westpac, 1 Harbour Dr, Coffs Harbour, NSW 2450.Indonesia - BANK ADDRESS: Bank Mandiri, KCP Nusa Dua Amenity. ACCOUNT NAME: Yayasan Bukit Kehidupan Ungasan ACCOUNT DETAILS: ACC# 145 00 0643024 9, SWIFTCODE: BMRIIDJA

VolunteersIn Feburary YWAM Hawaii and YWAM Canada have beenvery kind in helping us run the Star Kids programme andenglish lessons for seven weeks. We are very thankful fortheir presence and creativity in running these programstogether with Emily Debenham.

Surfers Girl are sending staff to spend time with our childrenby organising Computer lesson and Futsal Coaching weeklyfor the next three months. Our children are very delightedwith their commitment to give them lessons and soccertraining.

In March we had the privilage of having Kelsy Ingram, anOral health and hygeine student from Canada, run a HealthCare workshop on oral health and teeth care. All thechildren were given a teeth check and shown how to brushplaque off their teeth by using red dye and seeing it on theirown teeth! It was a great morning and all the kids had agreat time. Kelsy also provided new tooth brushes, floss andtooth paste for all the children, which was thorouglyappreciated, many thanks to Kelsy.

Staff NewsUnfortunatly Nelis, our gardener here at Balilife decided tofinish up his work with us. We will miss him and wish him allthe best in his new stage of life.

We have taken on board new staff for our Self-SustainabilityProject. They are doing amazing work and all the kids loveplaying soccer with them at the end of the day!

Brad has recently been in Australia to join a FUN RUN inaupport of Bali Life, organised by Coffs Harbour ChristianCommunity School on 30th March 2012. This was a greatsuccess, thankyou everyone for all the support!

We have a new Australian couple involved with Balilife whoare interested in running the Women and Children’s refugeproject. We look forward to their involvement and specialskills and talents they will bring to the project. Teeth brushing lessons!

Brad on the fun-run

Bali Life kids