Hi, my name is Paula and I’m a final-year Architecture student (Bsc) at the University of Bath.

This August, I’ll be joining CAUKIN Studio in Babahan, Bali to take part in a 4-week collaborative design-build project with Friends of Nature, People and Forests (FNPF), an Indonesian conservation NGO working across Indonesia for nearly 30 years.

The project is the FNPF Community Yoga Café: a multi-use community building that will form the social and operational centre of a wider community led tourism site. Positioned on a hillside above the rice paddies, the building will provide a café on the ground floor and an open yoga / meeting / workshop space above, creating a flexible shared hub for both local people and visitors.

This project matters because it is about creating useful shared infrastructure that supports FNPF’s wider mission of conservation, education, community development, and sustainable tourism. The building is intended to:

support daily community use

accommodate workshops, meetings and gathering

strengthen the site’s capacity for community-led tourism

provide a durable first-phase building for future site growth

respond carefully to Bali’s climate, landscape and local building culture

As an architecture student, this opportunity means a lot to me as it's a real chance to move beyond designing on paper and take part in a real project shaped by local needs, materials, construction methods and collaboration on site. I’ll be working alongside local craftspeople, project leaders and the Babahan community through a hands-on building process.

I am fundraising £1,600 to cover :

the Minimum fundraising contribution: £650

and participation costs: £950

This funding helps support the wider delivery of the project, including:

materials and on-site construction

accommodation and meals during the build

project coordination and supervision

collaborative construction with local partners

delivery of a lasting shared facility for FNPF

Any fundraising above the minimum can also help contribute to additional features and facilities on site.

I’ll also be looking into university funding and doing additional fundraising alongside this campaign. Any donation, no matter the amount, would mean a great deal and help me take part in a project with real long-term value.

Thank you so much for your support.