Recently I had the opportunity to join a group of people (approx 15 pax) to visit the schools / children / villages touched by the “I’m an Angel” Charity.

In the past few years “I’m an Angel” formed by Danielle Mahon and Tina Shazell have collaborated with KU DE TA and have since contributed over rp 500,000,000 to the “I’m an Angel” Charity.

Wow…what an amazing experience… where do I start?
Just some background, Viebeke (Asana Viebeke Lengkong), Danielle van Poppel / Mahon administer our funds (from the ‘I’m an Angel event) and allocate money to projects as approved by the newly formed I’m an Angel Committee. This is a year round voluntary role and we are very lucky to have them on board to assist with this. In addition to this, there are many regional program facilitators who check that all projects are traveling OK, with funding being spent on what was promised, approving receipts and delivering in kind goods and services to ensuring that the Charity is legitimate and transparent at all times.

It appears that the Government is often embarrassed about the funding that is provided by private business and in the past they have refused to attend the schools directly to talk about funding but now with the reputation of the Charity and its representatives (who have strong voices in the community and media) the Govt. are attending these meetings in an attempt to match dollar for dollar what we are donating.

On Tuesday we visited 3 schools where the villages have little to no water. In the past, if they wanted water, they must go on a 4 hour walking journey (start at 3am) to get buckets of water and lug up a huge mountain near Mt Agung. Our group took with us a huge water tanker truck and an egg and milk carton per child. This was the launch of the next project I’m an Angel is funding which is a weekly delivery of one egg and one milk carton per child for the next few months to reinstate protein into these malnourished children.

We met about 1000 kids who are all in uniforms (that I’m an Angel funded from the last project) and still pretty dirty though. Half of them wear shoes (that I’m an Angel funded last year) but the others don’t have any yet so as you can imagine with no water and lots of dust they are quite dirty. Not nearly as much as last year where Viebeke / Danielle and co. hand picked scabies and worms from their bodies. This year they are scabie / worm free - so it is moving forward. The kids and more so the government and authorities were delighted to finally meet someone from the I’m an Angel / KU DE TA group to thank and meet in person. Normally Viebeke / Danielle and co. travel to these places and monitor the program but this time they got to meet some more people behind the project and I felt very special and honoured to be there.

We then met with Anak Agung Bagus Ngurah Agung, the King of Karangasem who invited us to visit his palace for lunch to explain the projects and funding and he too was very impressed with all the efforts. We were very privileged to be asked to share the palace with the King for lunch.
Last stop was the oldest village in Bali, Bug Bug, to meet the parents and children of this village to allocate future funding to their upcoming projects. It is never a cash contribution, it is always in-kind (ie: we purchase books, food etc for kids or provide plumbers or materials for buildings or even one off operations to save little kids lives). Donations are designed to ensure the Government also contributes ie: I’m an Angel will approve funding for all internal facilities of a new learning centre but it is up to the Government to build the actual structure. So after we donate the fit out, the village can then lobby the Government and apply for a grant saying they already have the facilities donated by I’m an Angel for the fit out and this encourages the Govt. to donate the actual building. So as you can see, Viebeke and Danielle really make each village work for their donations. Viebeke / Danielle generally only make donations if there is a way the village can also assist ie: they agree to build facilities and I’m an Angel will fund materials but not labour. So it is a very inclusive process.

There was so much more that I saw and learnt and am happy to share this with you all but I really suggest that you all make the time and donate one day to one of these day trips to assist the I’m an Angel group and make a difference.

It costs rp 50,000 to sponsor one child per month (rp 600,000 per year - from an educational perspective) and the program encourages savings by asking all children to keep rp 5000 per month for their savings to build on for their future. Individual Scholarships are for orphans and very poor children.

We should all feel really proud to know that what we do makes such a difference to some 1630 kids directly and their families.

Thanks,

Andy Spittal
Functions & Events Manager