Piggy bank keeps kids at
school
Trisha Sertori, Contributor, Songan, Bali | Feature | Thu, February 13 2014, 12:47 PM
Care to share: Children tend to pigs at Piggy Paradise husbandry, which funds their school uniforms with the help of Cempaka Putih Foundation co-founder Gede Mangun (left).
Care to share: Children tend to pigs at Piggy Paradise husbandry, which funds their school uniforms with the help of Cempaka Putih Foundation co-founder Gede Mangun (left).
Making ends meet is tough for many that live in the impoverished Songan region of Bangli.
Situated at the foot of Mount Batur, most families depend on farming during the wet season while during the dry season, few crops survive. They manage to eke out enough to get by, but come the start of each new school year school books and new uniforms are enough to tip them over the financial edge.
Cempaka Putih Foundation was established several years ago by Gede Mangun, who was born and bred in the region, offers a grassroots answer to this annual financial meltdown. Cempaka Putih works in health support and has established a free English language school and a computer school and has now turned its attention to keeping kids at school for longer through animal husbandry.
“We have built a Piggy Paradise with support for the purchase of five piglets from Our Lady of Hope School in Adelaide, Australia, and I have donated land to raise the piglets. Each year the kids can sell off pigs to help cover their school expenses. Schools are free, but that is the school buildings, there is still a lot of other essentials that cost money and every year the kids go to a new class, new uniforms and books are needed,” Gede says as he and the six children in the Piggy Paradise pilot project hand feed the black and white piglets that snort with glee.
Set in an extended band of mature trees half way up Mt. Batur’s slopes, Piggy Paradise almost looks like the gardens of a five star hotel, with a thatched roof and open air bale surrounded by dense tropical jungle.
It is a hands-on project, with the children, aged around 11 years old, taking turns daily to visit the piglets, clean their yards and prepare their feed.
“This is a really good idea to raise money for our education needs. We could go to school without the piglets, but this makes finding the money much easier for our parents,” says Ni Kadek Bulan, 11, in the perfect English she learned at Cempaka Putih weekend language school.
Gede says if the project proved to be a success, some of the current piglets will be kept for breeding and more purchased with donations to increase the number of students having access to the Piggy Paradise program.
“I hope to see the project expand so other kids can also be involved and reap the benifits. At the moment there are five piglets and we plan to buy another five, so in the future we can sell their offspring and we won’t need to buy stock again,” says Gede of the black piglets that cost a staggering US$65 each.
“We could have gone with the less expensive white skinned pigs, but the black pigs are more like forest pigs and, therefore, much hardier. They are more disease resistant and can forage on the natural food found in the forest,” says Gede, adding that the moment the piglets were released into the Piggy Paradise they started digging into the rich black soil.
Back to school: Children of Songan get opportunities to go to school like others from wealthier areas.
Back to school: Children of Songan get opportunities to go to school like others from wealthier areas.
Learning to raise pigs for market is fun for these kids, but for their parents the potential addition to family finances is a relief.
“If this project works a lot more kids from Songan will get the opportunity to go to high school and maybe even university. It’s that important,” says Wayan Serinin, a mother of one of the children involved in the pilot.
“Lives can change with education so if we can get our kids to high schools their choices in the future will be improved,” says Wayan explaining that there was no upper high school in Songan at present. A new technical college is currently being built, but most students wanting to go to upper high school must board in Bangli, Denpasar or even as far away as Singaraja on Bali’s north coast.
“That is a very expensive option and that is why so very few of our kids ever get to high school. The success of the pigs for our kids could be the difference between getting a good education or not,” says Wayan.
Cempaka Putih Foundation is in need of financial help to ensure that success. “If people can donate a piglet, they get to name it. We also need help with roofing materials to complete the roof of the food store, and of course the ongoing costs of feed,” says Gede, who to date has personally funded the bulk of the project, believing that putting into this piggy bank today will yield great things in the future.
For more information visit the Cempaka Putih website at cempakaputih.org.
Photos by J.B.Djwan
Paper Edition | Page: 22
Selected comments will be published in the Readers’ Forum page of our print newspaper
Email from Gede: We have received from you IDR 8,214,000 and IDR 770,000 Total IDR 8,984,000
So the rest (IDR 4,651,000) I have donated.
Now piggy more than twice bigger than when you're in bali,they eat very much hehe.... and soon will need 15-20 kg per day.
They keep digging the wall and often out.. smart pigs but crazy!
To compelate the roof and garden will need around $ 350- 400
And food 230,000 IDR (21$) per week.
Have a great day.
Cheers
Gede
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Here's the spread out cost for the Piggy Paradise project as follow:
1. 100 pc bamboo pole @ 6000 =600,000
2. 30 Alang2 grass roof @ 12,000 =360,000
3. 15 sak Cements @ 57,000 = 855,000
4. Wire/2 roll(25 x 1m) @ 450,000 = 900,000
5. 5 Piglet @ 700,000. = 3,500,000
6. 1 big truck sand. = 650,000
7. 1 plastic roof 6 x 5 = 180,000
8. 2 kilo very thin wire @ 25,000 = 50,000
9. 1 sak piggy food = 230,000
10. 3 x transportation(small truck)@ 350,000 = 1,050,000
11. Builder 6 prs x 2 + 5 prs x 2, Total 27 x 120,000 = 3,240,000
12. Another 2 rolls wire for flooring. (1,5 m x25) @550,000 = 1,100,000
Additional; 4 x food (sak 50 kg) @ 230,000 = 920,000
Ps: now they eat 10-15 kg/day
So the Grand Total IDR 13,635,000
300 breeck-free(gede donate)
Land-free (gede donate)
Cheers
Gede
www.balisunrisetours.com
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| Receipt for donation from Cans For Kids Project |
Public donations can be made via PayPal (patkr57@hotmail.com)
If you buy a pig (70 AUS) it will be named after you and you will receive a photograph and an official receipt.
2014 August Update of Piggy Paradise
The Cans For Kids Project donated another $230 AUS to buy piggy food, in the absence of the proposed organic vegie garden, which was meant to feed the pigs. Unfortunately things don't always go to plan:
And so, the story of the Five Little Pigs continues....
The spoilt little mongrels decided that 'the grass was greener on the other side' and so burrowed their way out of the enclosure! Who has heard of pigs that burrow?? At fist it was hilarious! Imagine a bunch of school kids and neighbours chasing these slippery black pigs through their rice paddies and vegie gardens...
After a time, Gede's email mentioned 'angry neighbours' in the same sentence as 'Indonesian Police' and a decision had to be made....fast! Our five, not so little pigs, have found themselves moved to "piggy jail' rather than 'Piggy Paradise'. They now lead a hopeless life, in confined concrete quarters, like all the other Bali pigs.
It can now only be hoped that they will continue to grow fatter, and that with the help of Gede Mangun, it will reap the families some financial reward to help school their kids, because after all....that's what Cans For Kids is all about.
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