25th of July 2010

Plastic garbage is a big subject in Bali and of course also in the village and we want to learn the kids that it is not good to see plastic waste all over and that we have to do something against it. That's why we arrange regularly clean ups in Manuksesa. Also on this day and even the head of the "Dusun Manuksesa", Gede Surit, joined us. We split up in 3 groups - one group with Gede Surit, the 2nd group with our gardener Komang Arya and the 3rd group with me. Villa Manuk donated 150.000, 100.000 and 50.000 Rp for the prices and "my group" was number 1 in collecting plastic waste. On this day we collected around 30 kg plastic waste which was disposed later on an official waste dump. I was very proud that I could motivate children from the neighbour village to join our group. In the beginning they were very critical looking me picking up waste and were a bit laughing about it. But after a while 4 kids joined us and were not tired running around looking for waste near the creek, at the rice paddy walks, at the street, etc.
All kids got also some color markers or pencils which were donated by guests.

30th of June 2010

Beside English Conversation and collecting plastic garbage we do have another ongoing project for the kids. Every child of the Manuksesa Childrenproject can choose a plant in the garden of Villa Manuk and I will collect all information about the plant like Indonesian, Balinese, English and Botanical name and also to which family this plants belongs. I also print out general information about the plants in Bahasa Indonesia so the children can learn more about "their plant". Then we write together name signs for the plants, also with the name of the responsible child on it.

23rd of May 2010

Another highlight for the kids: English lesson with Peter. Like many times there were guests of Villa Manuk joining the seminar.
Concerning garbage I was happy that my appeal seems to be successfull. This time the children brought directly some kilograms of plastic garbage to the seminar. After the English lesson we weighted their collected plastic waste which Villa Manuk decides to buy for Rp 1.000 (approximately 0,08 Euro)/kg.

9th of May 2010

Meet again with Peter!
The kids were delighted to see Peter again who learned with them last year 4 times English and composed the song "Come on, let's learn a bit.." - and Peter was glad to see and hear that all kids still remember his or let's better say "our childrenproject song".
I joined the Earth Day in Ubud two weeks before and brought for the kids some information posters and stickers about environment.

18th of April 2010

Beside our program "English conversation" we talked about garbage. The different kinds of garbage and which waste the kids should collect to sell it to me. Finally they brought this time the first plastic bags full of garbage which we sorted out together (some of the waste was recycleable material) and which I will bring to an official trash dump.

20th of March 2010

The girls of our children-project are very happy! From today on they will have regularly Balinese Dance Lessons in Manuksesa. Their teacher Pak Nyoman is a very capable dancing teacher from the neighbour village Pakisan.
He will teach the girls twice a week, Saturday and Sunday afternoon. If it is not raining, the dancing lessons will take place in Villa Manuk.
And what about the boys? Good question :-). I also would love that they take dancing lessons but there are only a few interested, most of them prefer to play soccer.
Here some impressions from 2 dance lessons.

14th of March 2010

Another Seminar with learning English. We follow the lessons of the "English for Beginners" VCD and I am happy how interested and motivated the kids are.
Also we do not stop to learn more about environment issues: I promised the children to buy their plastic garbage from their homes or what they collect on the street. 1.000 IRP for 1 kg plastics or "rest garbage" (= what is not possible to compost or to recycle)paid by Villa Manuk.
And I want the kids learn more about plants. So every child of the children project chose one plant in the Villa Manuk garden. I will provide the information of the plant name in English and the Botanical name and each kid is responsible for its plant to give it an information sign (made by our staff) and learn more about this plant.

21st of February 2010

We continued our program "English conversation for beginners" and I am happy to see that most of the kids are not so timid anymore of speaking English.

7th of February 2010

How wonderful to see the kids again after nearly 2 months!
I brought them a "present" = "Dental Plaque Disclosing Tablets" which were kindly sponsored from my German dentist. So that was a great follow-up for our dental hygienic seminar on 08.11.2009. The children were very surprised to find out how much "blue" their teeth still are. An impressive demonstration to make the children aware to take better care of their teeth.