People living in isolated island communities often don’t
have access to many of the things we take for granted – infrastructure for
sanitation and waste management, clean running water, electricity, health care and
education. After visiting one such
community in remote West Papua in 2015 I launched the 100BooksProject in answer
to a teachers’ request.
“What do you need?” I asked, “How can I help you?”
“Books”. The answer
was so simple. “It’s very difficult to
teach the children to read and write without books”.
At that time there were no stories for the children to read,
no resources for the teachers to work from.
Most of the children used chalk to practice writing on top of their
wooden desks instead of notebooks and pencils.
It was such a humble request and seemed very easy to achieve, so I set
to work, and I asked you all to help me.
I wanted to collect 100 books for that school.
Since that initial call for help I have received donations
from all over the world. Together we
have distributed almost 4000 teaching resources, children’s books, activity
books and notebooks to 8 different schools, education programs and learning
centers in remote Indonesia.
During this time I have had the opportunity to spend time
with the teachers in these communities and I continue to ask the question –
what do you need, how can I best help you?
The answers are invariably the same – wall charts, boards + markers,
activity books. The students need socks,
underwear, shoelaces…
… and toothbrushes.
There is limited public health education in these isolated
communities and as a result not much weight is given to hygiene, nutrition and preventative
health measures. Often the teachers are
inspired to drive change but it’s not unusual for one teacher to be responsible
for 90 students raging from grades 1-6 for weeks at a time. Driving any kind of change is hard with those
numbers. But with support, change is
possible.
We are so excited to launch our new fundraising effort, the
#200ToothbrushesProject.
Our goal is to collect enough toothbrushes for all the
students in Selpele + Salio village schools.
That’s 200 toothbrushes. We
intend to work very closely with the teachers in these schools to ensure the
toothbrushes are cared for and used properly.
With the teachers ongoing support tooth brushing will become a routine
part of the school day and the children will develop this important daily habit.
It is important for us to offer the students bamboo rather
than plastic toothbrushes as a more sustainable option. Both villages lack the infrastructure for
waste management and there is no collection service to these remote
islands. Toothbrushes are a common item
found on beach cleans ups around the world and we would like to avoid contributing to
this if possible. Bamboo is a
fast growing renewable resource, and at the end of the toothbrushes life we
will be able to compost it or use it in the garden.
We have teamed up with Zero Waste Bali, a wonderful new
store in Bali stocking lots of package free foods and sustainable grocery
options. Zero Waste Bali have very
generously offered to donate a toothbrush for every 2 toothbrushes bought in
their stores for this project. You can
purchase a toothbrush from any of their four locations – Kerobokan, Ubud,
Canggu and Uluwatu. At the time of purchase just let the team
know that you want to support the 200 Toothbrushes Project and they will keep
your donated toothbrush aside for us.
If you’re not in Bali and would like to purchase a
toothbrush for a student in one of the villages out here you can make your
donation to our Go Fund Me page and we will make the purchase for you.
Toothbrushes are AUD$4 each and you can make your donation
HERE.
We are so excited to get this new initiative off the ground and hope to be able to deliver toothbrushes to the local children early next year.
Will you help us?
