Help this local community during this COVID crisis
Donation protected
Dear friends,
Bangka Island lies in North Sulawesi, in beautiful Indonesia. The island is famous for its world-renowned beaches and scuba-diving sites and attracts many tourists every year.
My friend Caroline and her husband manage Coral Eye resort, a small dive resort located on the West shore of the island. The resort employs over 30 local staff that reside nearby with their families, in a small community that relies exclusively on tourism to put food on their table and pay for healthcare.
The global COVID crisis has hit the local economy very hard. With tourism coming to a long standstill, the resort’s management team immediately renounced their salaries and set up part-time jobs to keep their staff employed and healthy no matter what, so that they, in turn, could provide for the local community. Luckily, many of the islanders have gardens and grow their own vegetables. They have the knowledge and skill to find herbs and dry wood in the jungle for cooking, to make their own coconut oil and to fish. The part-time salaries that the resort provides them during lockdown allow them to buy essentials like rice, sugar, drinking water, and salt. But this resourcefulness will however not be enough to support the community through the summer.
I am therefore setting up this crowdfunding project to help this small community in Indonesia until tourists return. We have made some calculations on the basis that tourism picks up again in autumn, which would mean 3 months’ support for 30 families. We estimate that this represents approximately 10’000 euros. Importantly, the resort could then continue to fund their health insurance.
We hope that this cause will resonnate with divers and non-divers alike and that we can help this little community make it through this difficult crisis.
Bangka Island lies in North Sulawesi, in beautiful Indonesia. The island is famous for its world-renowned beaches and scuba-diving sites and attracts many tourists every year.
My friend Caroline and her husband manage Coral Eye resort, a small dive resort located on the West shore of the island. The resort employs over 30 local staff that reside nearby with their families, in a small community that relies exclusively on tourism to put food on their table and pay for healthcare.
The global COVID crisis has hit the local economy very hard. With tourism coming to a long standstill, the resort’s management team immediately renounced their salaries and set up part-time jobs to keep their staff employed and healthy no matter what, so that they, in turn, could provide for the local community. Luckily, many of the islanders have gardens and grow their own vegetables. They have the knowledge and skill to find herbs and dry wood in the jungle for cooking, to make their own coconut oil and to fish. The part-time salaries that the resort provides them during lockdown allow them to buy essentials like rice, sugar, drinking water, and salt. But this resourcefulness will however not be enough to support the community through the summer.
I am therefore setting up this crowdfunding project to help this small community in Indonesia until tourists return. We have made some calculations on the basis that tourism picks up again in autumn, which would mean 3 months’ support for 30 families. We estimate that this represents approximately 10’000 euros. Importantly, the resort could then continue to fund their health insurance.
We hope that this cause will resonnate with divers and non-divers alike and that we can help this little community make it through this difficult crisis.
Fundraising team (3)
Cecile Hofmann
Organiser
Ilaria Reggi
Team member
Caroline Van Mol
Team member
