Meet Yayasan Bali Bersih
Yayasan Bali Bersih is an Indonesian non-profit organization founded in 2015 as a local partner for the foundation soul surf project Bali (now Westerlaken foundation) by Dr. Rodney Westerlaken. Yayasan Bali Bersih has a complete Indonesian board with four programs. Yayasan Bali Bersih executes programs indicated and funded by the Westerlaken foundation. The programs are human rights and children rights, marine environment, emergency relief, and issues on cultural heritage management. Yayasan Bali Bersih’s main program is the Human Rights and Children Rights program, which, besides an HIV/AIDS education program, runs the Stop Orphanage program.
The Stop Orphanage program focuses on increasing the awareness of various parties involved in managing the child welfare institute, especially the donors. A child welfare institute (orphanage) is not a place for children who still have families, have economic problems or do not have access to adequate education. They have the right to live and feel the warmth of their family instead of living apart for the things they don’t have. There are several cases of child welfare institutes that deliberately recruit underprivileged children from rural areas in order to get more donations. Based on this problem, Yayasan Bali Bersih invites various parties to break the chain of mismanagement of child welfare institutes.
Jodie O’Shea house has been one of the child welfare institutes in Bali since 2002. Many children found their home in Jodie O’Shea house and were helped with education and care. As in many Child Welfare Organizations in Bali, many children institutionalized at Jodie O’Shea house still had loving parents and mainly were in Jodie O’Shea based on poverty and access to education (98% of the children). In 2019 our foundation’s management started to guide Jodie O’Shea’s management team. This led to the result that Jodie O’Shea house, as a Child Welfare Institution, is now permanently closed.
Through the Jodie O’Shea children fund, Yayasan Bali Bersih remains to assist the children and their families that once lived in the care of Jodie O’Shea house by providing support. We do this by empowering families and ensuring access to education through our continuing program. With the Jodie O’Shea children fund, we also prevent the institutionalization of children and work with other Child Welfare Organizations with the objective of reunification and empowerment. We help families to be economically independent with their effort without having to depend on the assistance that we provide or other parties. We assist the families with an empowerment program to help them get a job, start up a micro business or give a microloan, provide food packages, and help with educational costs.
Let’s stop supporting child welfare institutes by increasing the empowerment of families in need so that each child can grow up in their own family environment with their parents and relatives. More information about our foundation could be accessed on our website: https://www.westerlakenfoundation.org/. Donations for access to education and empowering families are very much welcome and needed. To all those who have questions or want to know more about the Jodie O’Shea children fund or Yayasan Bali Bersih, please kindly contact us:
Our office : Jl. Umalas 1, No. 3, Kuta Utara, Badung, Bali (next to circle K, close to Nook)
Email : Info@yayasanbalibersih.org
Phone : 082211872080
