Rainer and Three Gedes on Yayasan Bondalem Bersih - A local green movement in Bondalem.

Rainer and his wife Gisela have been running the Yoga-Spa Retreat Bali Mandala for over ten years. During this time they have always been involved in local initiatives to help children with education. Within the education programs 'the environment' has always been an important focus point.

The Three Gedes are Gede Darmada, Gede Suarsa and Gede Almana and they did most of the talking at our meeting.For some time they have been arranging events like village and river cleanups  to raise awareness of the problems with garbage.  They involve children in these events as they are receptive to new approaches and can help bring about  a change of attitudes in the village.

Recently, they have set up the Yayasan that is officially named Tri Jagra Wiyata Mandala - but more frequently referred to as Yayasan Bondalem Bersih which means Clean Bondalem Foundation. This will enable them to manage funding needed for the projects.

The aim is that the projects should become self supporting, and the main way to do this will be to produce organis fertiliser from the compost materials and then sell this to local farmers who will be growing organic products.  Currently farmers are buying organic fertiliser from Bogor in Java, but if the fertiliser is available locally it will be cheaper (no transport costs).At present, they are using drums for composting, but the amounts being composted are not so big and the process is slower - taking many weeks.

 The plan is to buy a machine that can process larger amounts more quickly. In the Bondalem area they can collect 4 tonne per day - so there is a strong need for the machine.In the discussion that followed the rpesentation, members were interested in how they got the schools involved, and were wonderng how to bring about a change of attitude among older people.  There was also some discussion on how to manage non-organic and non-plastic waste such as glass.