We hit the ground running in Cogiving this year! There were heaps happening – from the recommencement of paused projects, new initiatives, new cogiving partnerships, completed projects and new events. Here is a breakdown of all that’s been happening in Cogiving at Dojo in January.
Merah Putih Hijau
The MPH app development project is back on track. Nick Sarafa and Andrea Soverini who were actively involved last year are spear-heading the way towards the next stage of the project. The first app dev meeting after the holiday break was held in late January and the outcome from the meeting was that we will hold a Development Sprint Weekend on the 23rd-25th March 2018. The outcome from this weekend will be a fully functioning app which could be used by the MPH facility manager for daily reporting. For anyone with a front-end, back-end or UI/UX background and based in Bali around March: come talk to me and support us! If you are interested, be sure to go on the site visit next Tuesday, 06 February 2018 to see how the waste management effort works.
Bye Bye Plastic Bags
Check out the new website for Bye Bye Plastic Bags! Their website was redesigned thanks to the generous work of Adam Wilson who donated time and effort to redesign the website from scratch. Keen to see how the new website will perform!
Bye Bye Plastic Bag is leading another big clean-up on 24 February 2018 titled “Bali’s Biggest Clean-up”. This will be similar to the event they did last year which mobilized 12,000 people across 55 beach locations in Bali to clean-up 40 tons of trash. The event this year will be much bigger as it will also include locations in-land, in villages, towns and cities across the island. The aim of this event is to spread awareness towards the local population of the island on the ongoing waste issue in Bali and build momentum towards a campaign to rally the government to ban plastic bags in Bali. For more infos, visit this link.
Stella’s Child
January has been a busy month for the Stella’s Child crew. A lot of reorganization was done over the holiday break in order to lean-up the organization. This was done to avoid the issues faced last year as there were too many programs to manage and it caused some things to fall apart. So, this year, Stella’s Child is prioritizing more on quality of the programs instead of quantity.
I have also mentioned in a previous post that they will be moving the Youth Development Centre to a site in Babakan and are looking for volunteers who could help them paint and do some handy-work at their new center. For more info on this, please visit this link.
Five Pillar Foundation
Due to the Mt. Agung eruption, Five Pillar Foundation’s means of funding have recently been disrupted. Many of their regular programs with their sponsors and partners which keeps their funding flowing and their operations going have been cancelled due to the eruption. Hence, right now, they are in need of alternative means of funding. We have a couple of Dojo members Caroline Perreard and Anna Franchi who are currently supporting Five Pillar Foundation in their fundraising effort. If you come from a fundraising or marketing background, your support on this would be great! Don’t forget to also attend the Balinese Culture Excursion on February where we will learn everything about Balinese Culture.
Green-books.org
We have begun a new Cogiving partnership with green-books.org starting this January. There was much interest from the members who attended their intro presentation to be involved in the organization. The following week, we held a brainstorming session in order to figure out where green-books.org could improve. During this session, several short-comings were identified in the green-books website, marketing strategy and funding model, and the team figured that the best step to take would be to write a proposal of the aspects green-books could improve on and the things the team could help execute. The proposal is still currently a work-in-progress and will be done by the first week of February.
Mt Agung Donations
We have received a lot of donations so far in the donation box and have been delivering it regularly to the Evacuation Camps’ Logistics Centre in Denpasar. The types of donations we’ve received include: clothing, masks, food, towels, blankets, bed sheets, bags, etc. Thank you all who have donated! If you are looking to donate, the urgently required items at the moment are: Bottled water, staple foods (rice, egg, noodles, etc), baby foods & diapers, formula milk, first aid supplies, hygiene kits, smog masks, etc. Please refrain from putting unnecessary items in the box.
Mt Agung is currently still active, it is still categorized in the highest warning level – Level IV (beware). The latest eruptions occurred on 24 January 2018 although it is only covered by the local media. Some evacuees who are in the intermediate danger zone are already let back home, however thousands more are still taking refuge in the evacuation camps.
Upcoming Cogiving Events
- Visit to Merah Putih Hijau – Tuesday, 06 February 2018
- Balinese Culture Excursion – Saturday, 17 February 2018
