Health Education Program Bali

Hi Lauren,

Thank you, it was a challenging but rewarding experience and I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it. I am grateful to be back safely on Australian soil given the recent devastation from the earthquakes in Lombok and surrounding areas. As requested please find below completed questions. I’ve also attached a couple of photos from the trip.

Highlights of the trip:

• The students/kids were always so happy and eager to learn
• A rewarding experience with the kids and got to know them individually by the end of it (they even brought us flowers from their backyard on our last day as a thankyou)
• Welcomed into the community by the locals and got to experience the culture in a way which wouldn’t be possible solely as a tourist
• Made some wonderful friends from various places around the worldComments on the team, food and accommodation:
• Staff were very friendly and approachable and happy to help with anything and also had very good English
• I enjoyed the meals but they did get very repetitive (more variety would be good)
• I stayed in the private accommodation, this was comfortable however the floor of the toilet/bathroom sink and shower was the same area so it was always wet (so your feet would be too)Any improvements to help us be better:
• The website makes it appear as though the healthcare program is a structured program already in place of which you are facilitating – however this was not necessarily the case as it was teaching a class of student’s healthcare and it was up to you to structure the program and teaching content yourself. I found this very difficult given the language barrier and no teaching experience. By the end of the teaching I was happy with the content I was providing for the students but the first couple of days was very difficult.
• The Introduction week had limited content for the actual healthcare/teaching program – the Bahasa language classes were useful but I found the week was mostly ‘playing tourist’ and going around to the local attractions with only one meeting about what we would actually be doing during the volunteering program.
• More content about the volunteering and exactly what you will be doing in the Introduction week to give you more time to prepare the program for the kids the following week, thorough examples of what previous volunteers have done (ie. What’s worked for them and what they found hasn’t worked) would be very helpful.

Thanks for having me.

Kind Regards,

Bianca Connell

 

NUTRITION EDUCATION BALI PROJECT