English Teaching and Organic Farming with Locals

Pejeng is a village 5 km outside the buzzing town of Ubud and unlike the latter is rather unknown by tourists. It is a small traditional village surrounded by beautiful rice fields and it also happens to be the biggest archaeological site in Bali with 44 temples (most of them declared National Heritage) and a Prehistory museum. Pejeng is also a Wildlife Sanctuary and a paradise for birdwatchers. Here we breed the critically endangered Bali Starling (Leucopsar rothschildi). In addition, we also breed other species of bird such as Black Winged Starling (Acridotheres melanopterus) and Pied Myna (Gracupica contra).

Our main goal in Pejeng is to engage with the local community to protect the wildlife and their habitat, as well as support organic farming and develop sustainable tourism that will benefit the local population. In Pejeng we work closely with the local community to protect the wildlife and habitat of this village. We and the local community agree that Pejeng must be protected from the massive tourism that currently happening in Bali. We do not want this little village turned into another commercialized tourist attraction that can destroy its nature and its culture. The challenge is too real. Every day, the population of Pejeng witness the pressures of unsustainable tourism development in Ubud which are slowly edging closer to their village border.

We now invite many volunteers from around the world to participate in our volunteering projects. Because most of our volunteers will need long term accommodations, we arranged a volunteer program that can benefit the villagers in Pejeng village. We provide dormitory rooms for our volunteer at Pejeng Village, but we also collaborate with the local to rent their room for the volunteers. We will arrange all the booking and the payment while the villagers can concentrate on improving the readiness of their rooms. According to the agreement, 60% of the fee for the room will go to the villagers. The other 10% of the fee will go to the village, while FNPF will only get 30% of the fee. We hope this business model can prevent the expansion of mass tourism in Pejeng. We believe that as one of the biggest archaeological sites in Bali, Pejeng must be protected from the negative effect of mass tourism. In addition, this community based hospitality can provide the villagers with a low risk source of income. Hence, the villagers might be convinced not to sell their farms to investors and keep their day job as a farmer while still being able to gain some money from our projects.

Volunteer Teaching English

This should be a conversational type of lessons, casual and entertaining, that would enable the locals to gain confidence and start speaking English to foreigners. It could be at many levels: people that has restaurants and shops, market vendors, etc. Or potential tourism workers: people that could act as a tour guide showing around Pejeng, people that could host tourists as a homestay, etc.

The goal would be for them to learn the basics of conversation (introducing yourself, basic questions, and numbers). Then for each group something more specific, vocabulary that they might need (i.e. food related for the market and restaurant owners, household for the homestays). It would be useful to provide them with printed vocabulary which they can take home.

Volunteer Work in Organic Farming