Volunteering in Bali

As someone who was on exchange for the year in Melbourne, far away from home in London, I was thoroughly enjoying the opportunities presented to me in Australia. A new country to explore, friends from all corners of the world and Melbourne becoming my second home. However, I didn’t imagine myself spending a month in Bali, Indonesia over December volunteering with a local organisation after finishing my university degree! This blog post will go into my experience of volunteering for a month out there, and provide some insights to anyone who is also thinking of completing a humanitarian project away from home.

How did I end up here? 🤔

Prior to moving to Australia for the year, whilst sitting at home in London, I was thinking about how I would like my year abroad to look. Volunteering was never part of that plan - with my original 'bucket list' idea being to spend NYE in Sydney watching the fireworks. However, once I moved to Melbourne and the year progressed, I found opportunities that weren't on my radar before - one of them being volunteering. After some research into potential locations and how it would all work, I decided to go for it and spend December in Bali.

How do you go about finding opportunities like this? Well, for those of you who are university or school students, I recommend always looking out for scholarships, grants or clubs/societies that allow you to complete these sort of programs. It will require some effort from your end, but some extra funding can go a long way in helping you get ready for a trip! If it's the case that you have to find your own programme, volunteering agencies are a great place to start to show you what's on offer. I used International Volunteering HQ (IVHQ), a volunteer travel organisation. They have a heap of projects on offer all over the world. If it's your first time doing something like this, IVHQ was really good at walking you through the whole process, making it very easy to sort out everything, from accommodation to transport. A general list of things to consider when volunteering abroad are:

• Flights
• Medication required for the region you are visiting
• Visas - I had to get a cultural visa for Bali.
• Accommodation
• Transport
• Appropriate clothing for the weather

About Green Lion Bali 💚

For four weeks, spanning December 2023 into the new year, I was based in a village outside of Ubud, a town in the centre of Bali. I volunteered with Green Lion Bali, an organisation that runs various project such as:

• Kindergarten teaching
• Marine turtle conservation
• Environmental education
• Medical education
• Construction & renovation

I took part in the latter. Our construction project was located close to Ubud and was the building of a new kindergarten for children in the local village to attend for free, as many were unable to afford the mandatory fees for kindergarten in Bali. At Green Lion the construction projects operate on a rolling basis, so depending on when you arrive you may be involved with the beginning or final stages of construction. During my stay, the kindergarten neared completion, and our focus shifted to painting, decorating, and adding finishing touches to the structure.

A Typical Day🏗️

07:00 - Wake up

My weekdays in Ubud typically consisted of starting my day with delicious fresh fruit and breakfast at the Green Lion volunteer centre.

08:30 - Leave to get transport to site

We'd go to the school by car with my fellow volunteers through the bustling streets of Bali.

09:00 to 13:00 - Construction & renovation volunteering

Our construction volunteering was scheduled in the mornings, to avoid the peak of the Balinese heat and monsoon-type rain showers that often follow. My first couple of weeks in construction were mainly focussed on painting the interior and exterior of the kindergarten. Outside, I applied coats of paint to the shrines that are commonplace in every compound in Bali, as well as the boundary walls. Inside, my painting was more intricate – past volunteers had done an excellent job of drawing cartoons, stories and whole landscapes that needed colouring in. Prior to this experience, I had never considered myself an ‘artistic person’, but I’m having second thoughts on that now! My ability to create my own drawings and murals was put to the test when I was tasked with filling one of the classroom’s walls with creativity. This was initially outside of my comfort zone, but volunteering here allowed me to discover my talent for drawing. I can now look back and take pride in the ‘under the sea’ feature wall, world map and a host of other cartoons around the kindergarten that I drew. However, my volunteering wasn’t limited to painting and drawing. Coming from a civil engineering background, having studied for 3 years at Imperial College London prior to my final year at UniMelb, I wanted to experience some ‘real’ construction too. I got involved with plastering a newly constructed wall, mixing cement by hand, and constructing the wall for a flower bed over my month here.

The breadth of activities available to me as a construction volunteer with Green Lion gave me a great insight into local building techniques in Bali. Health and safety codes particularly stood out to me - with it being common for locals to work in flip flops, with no helmets, hi-vis or safety signs! Nonetheless, despite not having access to the most advanced equipment or machines, the skill shown by Balinese construction workers was impressive and creative, and taught us a great deal of working with limited resources.

13:00 onwards - free time

The schedule worked well for me, as it meant that on weekdays I still had half a day to explore Ubud! More on that in a coming blog.

Life in Ubud 🛖

The Green Lion volunteer centre was a shared living quarter with other volunteers from all over the world, together in a Balinese home. The compound included sleeping rooms, cooking facilities and a family temple, typical of a Balinese house. It even had a swimming pool, which we all greatly appreciated after a hot morning working under the sun! The bedrooms were clean but simple - with up to 6 people sharing a room in 3 bunk beds. Luxuries such as air conditioning, which I took for granted in Australia, no longer existed - so the heat took some getting used to when trying to get to sleep. Lizards scurrying across the walls and ceiling were common (they're harmless and make for great company!🦎)

The food was also amazing at the volunteer centre. Being vegan myself, I had no problem with finding dishes that I could have. Breakfast was typically toast and a huge variety of fruit. Lunch and dinner would consist of rice/noodles, tofu/tempeh and lots of veggies - simple but tasty dishes that I did not mind having for 4 weeks. Being the only predominantly Hindu island in Indonesia, vegetarian and vegan food is relatively easy to come by in Bali.

Immersing myself into local life was the best way to learn about the traditions, culture and language of Bali, as well as exchanging stories with all the other volunteers present.  Afternoons were spent exploring Ubud and nearby areas, from coffee plantations to traditional dances, rice paddies, and beautiful waterfalls. Volunteers had free time on weekends, where I aimed to make the most of my time in Bali. With my newfound friends from the volunteer centre, we had done trips to the south of the island (Kuta and Nusa Dua), but my favourite moment was spending the new year’s weekend snorkelling and scuba diving off Gili Trawangan (the largest of Lombok’s Gili Islands). All the above adventures taught me a great deal, including the importance of being flexible, seizing opportunities and the benefits of interacting with people from diverse backgrounds. More to come on this in a future blog post!

My 4 weeks in volunteering Bali flew by, and before I knew it, I was saying goodbye. I developed greatly as a person, and I hope that my positive contribution at the kindergarten in Ubud will serve the children for years to come. Many thanks to the entire Green Lion Bali team, in particular Iwan Kurniawan for being a great construction coordinator. Suksma (thank you) Bali! 🙏

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