The story of Gede

We are sponsoring a youth up in the mountains and visited his house to establish the criteria needed for admission into our sponsor program This is for the senior high school student, Gede, who lives in most simple circumstances with his family. The parents do have primary school education only and wish to see their children to be well educated. They try everything to provide the money for the fees of the school. Gede was not able to join part of the last semester since the family had no money to pay for the fee.

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Lagu Damai foundation is evaluating and will support Gede, after speaking now to this teacher at school. You can see in the photos Gede and his two siblings, a view into the kitchen where the family has no running water and has to get the water from 100 m below in the valley. They offered us a Jackfruit to taste and to savor.

Nata and the scholarship from Lagu Damai Bali

Nata I Ketut is smiling. He is always smiling but he was smiling even more when we told him about an interview for the Jiwa Damai blog. “We want people to meet you”, we told him! His eyes were big and full of light. “Ya?, he said. But which people?”.“Friends of Jiwa Damai who are reading our newsletter, our blog, our Facebook page”, we replied. He was not really sure why we were asking him all these questions but he wanted to help. The way he always does around Jiwa Damai. Nata received a scholarship from Lagu Damai Bali foundation in order to pursue his interest in studying law at Universitas Warmadewa. He is also coming for two hours a week at Jiwa Damai to learn about permaculture and to help our gardener and volunteers.

lagu damai bali foundation student

The discussion was a mix of English and Bahasa Indonesia. We started by asking him about his studies.

“I am studying civil law at Universitas Warmadewa in Bali. I started three years ago and I still have three years to go. I am really interested in the land law because I want to help the poor people of the village to organize better the community.

My dream was to study law and Lagu Damai Bali helped me to pursue it. It is a challenge (he really used the Indonesian word tantangan) but I think I can help other people by learning it and this motivates me”.

We also asked him about his work at Jiwa Damai.

“I like the way we are taking care of the plants at Jiwa Damai. I am still learning a lot about permaculture. I like the green of the leaves, the green of the trees, the green of the garden, it makes me happy.

In Bahasa Indonesia we say: “menanam banyak tanaman membuat keindahan didalam diri saya” which means, “creating a green space brings beauty inside my soul”.

At Jiwa Damai we are taking care both of our land, of our garden, of our plants and of our people and we do this whole-heartedly and we get all this love back. Come and feel it for yourself!

This month we are celebrating 13 years of activity through the heart at Lagu Damai Bali Foundation. Have you seen our video?