Heidi Hornberger is a sculptor and photographer who has been supporting the KEMBALI scholarship program from its' inception in 2004. Almost yearly in November, Heidi, along with at least one other Heidi Circle donor (and there are about fifty now) and the YKIP staff, take the students on an outing.
This year, they went to the “Bali Fun Park” in Batuan. As Heidi describes it in an email to the donors: “The children arrived with many of their parents and the reunion was very heart-felt for all of us. Janice (one of the donors) was thrilled to finally meet Luh Juliasih, the girl she has been sponsoring since the beginning of the Heidi Circle over 6 years ago. Many of the kids have grown a whole head taller during my 2 year absence and a few, who had leaped into their teens, I almost did not recognize.
Rucina, our YKIP director, had warned me that the park was all "plastic in bright colors," with blasting music, tons of games for the children to play and was of no cultural value what-so-ever. However, she had taken other YKIP children to the park and they had absolutely loved every minute of it. She was right on all fronts.
There were trampolines, huge jungle gyms, giant inflatable slides, a mechanical bucking bull, inflated climbing walls, and on and on. The park staff divided the children into teams and introduced them to lots of the games. Two hours later we had an exhausted (but very happy) groups of kids. Some of the children, whose lives are more challenging and who virtually never smile, had huge grins that I had never before seen on their faces. Success!
After lunch at the park, we distributed to each child the disposable cameras Janice and I carried from the States. Their assignment for the photo project during the next 2 weeks was to teach their family and friends how to the use the camera and take photos of them doing everyday activities. We also instructed the children to take some photos of the ceremonies that are currently going on and anything else they wanted to capture on film. This way they were able to experience being both a photographer and a subject.
During these 2 weeks, Janice and I also did the same assignment with one of the cameras and then made 2 collages to show the children some samples of what they would be creating with their photos. Our sample collages were worth a thousand words of instructions. We also spent time making stamps for the children to use when decorating the collages. It took a few hours on Google Images, to cut and paste many thumbnail size photos of Bali onto sheets of paper, which we color copied. Then there were the days of hand cutting out all these stamps and decorations. In the end, the final effect on the collages made our sore hands worth the effort.
[Two weeks later] we gathered at one of our schools to create the collages. There was so much excitement in the air as the children opened their photo packets to see how their filming had turned out. There were giggles of delight everywhere in the room as they saw photo after photo of themselves. Each child was given a pair of scissors, a glue stick, 2 large pieces of colored paper and a pile of stamps and stickers to use. The final results were outstanding. We completed the day by giving the children a duplicate set of their photos in brightly covered albums, which they decorated on the outside with a photo and drawings.
The children are thriving and you are making a huge difference in their lives. Thank you for your continued support and generosity. And we would like to say thank you to Heidi and Janice as well as Field Officer Deasy for making this outing possible.
