Wow, June went by like a flash! No wonder that it did, considering there were so many cool events and happenings in Cogiving this month. A human chain demonstration organized by the youth of Bye Bye Plastic Bags, their awesome talk at Dojo, a cogiving trip, meetups and heaps of Dojo legends volunteer for our partner charities. Here is a breakdown of all happenings of this month:
World Oceans Day
To commemorate this year’s World Ocean’s day which falls on June 8th every year, the Bye Bye Plastic Bags team decided to come up with an event different to the usual beach clean ups. As founder Melati (18) stated, they wanted to do “something more symbolic to show a united front”. Hence, they organized “human waves” across five beaches in Bali. Titled “Take A Stand & Hold My Hand”, this human wave demonstration covered up to 1000m of beach all together from Kuta, Nusa Dua, Amed, Sanur and Batu Bolong. By holding this event, they aim to unite the people of Bali across all backgrounds to take a stand together to protect the world’s oceans. What’s more awesome is that Benaz, a Dojo member, supported them in taking photographs and drone footage for the event!
Melati & Isabel – a real inspiration
A few days later, Melati along with sister Isabel (16) was at Dojo to present their story of Bye Bye Plastic Bags and the projects they are working on at the moment. The turn-out was great and the event filled the whole room. It’s no surprise as these girls have spoken at world events such as the World Ocean Summit and UN General Assembly in front of world leaders!
Dojo members were also amazed at the feats these girls have achieved at such a young age, such as meeting the Bali governor and get him to sign an agreement that Bali will be plastic bag free, building river booms from recyclable materials to collect trash floating in Bali’s rivers, creating an educational booklet for schoolkids around Indonesia, empowering women in rural Bali by giving them work and decent wages through their Mountain Mama initiative and uniting all the environmentally aware NGOs and social enterprises around Bali through their One Island One Voice initiative. Wow! We couldn’t be more proud of these girls and honored to support them in their great projects and initiatives. You can learn more about their projects here.
Stella’s Child Volunteers
As always, we have several Dojo members supporting Stella’s Child this month through mentoring and volunteering roles. This month, I would like to focus on one particular member: Felipe, who gave his time to take photographs of the youth who are currently doing their internships! Felipe shared this about his volunteering experience:
“So humbled and blessed to team up with Tim Cameron and Indonesian filmmaker John Wayan Sullivan and bring up the stories behind the entrepreneurial program that Stella’s Child displays in Indonesia. The initaitive supports over 600 disadvantaged youths. They are rediscovering their dreams and developing the necessary set of skills to foster broader horizons in their lives. A lot of passion, dedication and life-changing stories involved. A great chance to renew our beliefs in a positive and greater future.”
Cogiving Meetup
For this month’s meetup, we were joined by Nino from Merah Putih Hijau. He shared with us Merah Putih Hijau’s story and the projects which had been taken in the past in collaboration with Dojo, including the Dojo Impactathon. Nino also shared about the current volunteering opportunities available which I mention below.
The Cogiving Meetup happens every 4th Wednesday of the month and features one of Dojo’s social partners. If you are a member who is interested in giving back to the Balinese community but don’t know how, then this meetup is for you. Get to know what Cogiving is all about and how you can get involved.
Support Needed
This month, there are several volunteering and mentoring opportunities available with Merah Putih Hijau and Stella’s Child. Firstly, Stella’s Child requires experts in the corresponding fields to mentor youth in the age of 15-17 years old:
- Environmental Awareness (bring awareness about Bali’s condition and world in general)
- Teamwork skills (for a good insight in dealing with multiple departments in working environment)
- Problem solving skills (finding a good solution when encounter a problem at work)
- Global citizenship
The sessions are available for 4-6 July, 11-13 July or 18-20 July. It will be 3 hours a week, 1 hour for 3 days (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday).
Secondly, Merah Putih Hijau is seeking people for the following roles:
- Ad-word manager that improves search optimization and overall reach
- Campaign manager that helps set up new fundraising accounts and websites. The goal is to raise money for next 2 years – Gofund ME, PayPal, Bitcoin and Ethereum
- A social media strategist that can help us make our new 3D animation video go viral in Indonesia
As always, if you are interested in one of these volunteering opportunities, please fill in the Volunteer Application Form or come talk to me, Yudis, your very own Cogiving Officer 🙂
Coming up this month
We also have several exciting events lined up for this July!
- Ensuring Freshwater Resilience in Bali – Wednesday, 11 July 2018
- Permaculture Workshop – Saturday, 14 July 2018
- Cogiving Meetup – Wednesday, 25 July 2018
What a month and what a line-up for next month! Thank you to the members who are already giving their valuable time and skills to these great causes. You can find out more about the charities we are partnering with on the Dojo Website.