Melia Bali Villas & Spa Resort To Build a House for the Penury

Management of Melia Bali represented by its General Manager, Jim Boyles and Community Involvement Team, Thursday (5/6) delivered a house to the family of I Wayan Karyasa from Antiga Hamlet, Karangasem. The assistance is a commitment from Melia Bali Villas & Spa Resort in supporting the government program to eradicate poverty as a manifestation of social concern to the community.

The 3-bedroom house, measuring 6.5 x 5.5 m was established in a month. In addition, mattresses, pillows, beds covers, rattan chairs, table and rice was also given. Previously, the family of I Wayan Karyasa, his wife and seven children occupied a simple house surrounded only by soil wall.
Head of the Labor Union of Melia Bali Unit, Putu Yadnyana said that the program of house establishment indicated the seriousness of Melia Bali toward social advancement and did not only focus on the interest of hotel. Human Resources Manager, Made Suardika admitted that he felt proud because Melia Bali has become a pioneer in carrying out such program.
Meanwhile, Mr Richardson and his wife, a foreign couple from Australia, participated in the social activity and confessed to feeling delighted that they could personally help indigent people. As tourists who have for over 17 years stayed at Melia Bali for their vacations, they felt to have found valuable experience that could not be obtained on vacation at other places.
Nova Terita, Public Relations Officer of the hotel, explained that the entire fund utilized to establish the house was obtained from participation of guests, staff, and management of Melia Bali and was continually performed in the spirit of mutual assistance of all staff of Melia Bali. The house establishment program for the indigent community began in September 2007. In previous years, houses have been delivered to the family of Ni Ketut Kalik from Babakan Hamlet, Gegalan Village, Karangasem and I Nyoman Sangkreb from Antiga Village, Karangasem. “Melia Bali also helped every family to relieve their life burden by giving talks pertaining to the method of farming, raising cattle, sending children to school as well as helping them get adequate work,” he said. (BTN/015)

Rubbish and Sanitation Still an Obstacle

As an international tourist destination, Bali indeed offers a variety of splendor and enjoyment for tourists. But behind such splendor and enjoyment on offer some emerging problems remain, particularly related to the environment. Rubbish and sanitation are two problems tourists often complain about. “It is still an obstacle. Sewerage that is often directly pumped into the sea will result in pollution at our gorgeous beaches,” said Susmono, Director of Sanitation Development for Settlement Environment, Directorate General of Housing, Planning and Urban Development, Department of Public Works.
Integrated sanitation project known as Denpasar Sewerage Development Project (DSDP) is an alternative offered for sanitation management. It was revealed that such project denotes an effort to maintain the water sanitation by channeling the domestic sewerage to distribution network to be processed further. “By doing so, the domestic sewerage will not contaminate the environment and not get disposed to river or sea,” he uttered in the campaign program of International Year of Sanitation (IYS) 2008 in Sanur not long ago.
Activity of IYS 2008 means to achieve better life. For this purpose, the activity was combined with drawing competition and speech contest entitled “Maintaining Water as the Life Resource” participated by 150 school children from 61 schools in Denpasar, Badung, Tabanan, Gianyar and Klungkung. “Through this drawing competition and speech contest, we would like to provide early education to children so they could maintain the water as an important life resource. Its real measure is through conservation and sanitation by improving the concern in the matters of judicious utilization of water, provision of proper sanitation and maintenance of the environmental sanitation,” he added.
(BTN/008)