Bukti Air Sanih Bali Village has been very badly affected by Coronavirus, especially the old. Rotary Newton Aycliffe has helped them achieve their goal with a very welcome donation.

John and Ann Millward live in Bali and are close friends of Brian Winwood, a member of Rotary Newton Aycliffe. Brian said “This is what John wrote to me in a casual conversation”.

It wasn’t until Widi just said in a conversation “many people with poorly stomachs because no food. They bring us notifications from the head of the village with government instructions, we are told to stay in and isolate”.

The government has closed some shops and restricted opening times on others and local markets. But all they are doing is bringing the same amount of people together in a shorter space of time, worse really. We are trying to help people in our local village get food during the bad times Coronavirus has created for many.

The government has them locked down and isolating just like us, but it is difficult for some Balinese people, many out of work and particularly older people are going hungry. They remain in contact with others when they shouldn’t because they need food. Widi (our lady) told us that old people and single parents in particular are suffering. The same as in the UK and many other places, but this is at another level and it is sad.

We gave Widi and Kadek some money and they put together small bags of food containing eggs, noodles and two kilos of rice and they handed them out around the village for us. Bukti Air Sanih Bali Village has been very badly affected by Coronavirus, especially the old.

Brief resume about John & Ann

We were married and lived for many years in the North East and North Yorkshire. Much of our family is still there. Ann was always involved in some kind of charity work be it baking cakes for some fund raising event or working as a volunteer for many years in charity shops such as Help The Aged, she helped whenever she was asked, whilst John’s work as a Graphic Designer kept him busy throughout the North East and beyond, working for local and international companies. Much like now, in lockdown, due to Coronavirus, computers and the internet allowed us to work more remotely and we moved to Scotland then on to France where we lived for 10 years. But we always loved the far east and Asia so two years ago we made the decision to move to the island of Bali in Indonesia. Most people you ask will include ‘paradise’ in their describtion of Bali and indeed it is in many ways. Coronavirus has highlighted this tropical island’s dependency and incomes on the millions of tourists that come every year from all over the world. Almost overnight everything came to a stop.