The Bright Course Foundation was founded by Mr Toni in central Lombok to provide social mobility to teenagers whose parent's cannot afford a formal english education. The aim is to provide job - focused training which will qualify those who want it with the skills to secure a job in a hotel or restaurant in the Gili Islands, Lombok or Bali.

Currently Mr Toni has 14 students who join him on a 6 month programme to learn English and train in basic hospitality, understanding the expectations of western tourists. The students live with Mr Toni in his house for the duration of the course and sleep together in one room on the floor. The school is not big enough to accept all students and some have been turned away until a larger school is built on new land.

The goal is to raise enough money to procure the materials required to build the new school which will consist of:

- one classroom

- one large boys dorm

- one smaller girls dorm

- one kitchen area

Already Mr Toni has successfully raised £4770 to buy the new land 5 Km from the existing school.

Below is a list of materials required ( no.1 -13) and labour cost (no.14). Note the conversion of 135,755,000 IDR to £7175 GBP.

The ground plan can be seen below.

The students have been active in digging the foundations on the land. The next step is to cement in the iron supports in the foundations, once funding has been raised.

In addition to construction in the central garden area the children also cultivate the the crops and can explain what they do in english. This means they maintain their local knowledge of the land and proudly impart their knowledge to guests and volunteers, developing contributions to eco-tourism. Importantly this also keeps running costs for the school down and the children fed.

This is a crowd funding page and so will be open to donations for thirty days only. To all those who donate and leave their email address I will provide photographs of construction progress.

This school heavily utilises volunteer support of english teachers and simply english speaking guests so students can test their hospitality skills and gain feedback before their job interviews. The education here does not aim compete with a university but what sets it apart is that it's job focused and paired with a hospitality education so that youth can still get ahead. To date five students of the school have found jobs in hospitality in Gili Trawangan, southern Lombok and Denpassar, Bali. In the evening the classroom is transformed into a restaurant so that those who have left the school with hospitality jobs come back and train the younger students. Likewise western volunteers can assist with training.

According to the youth, jobs available to young people in Lombok are not good. Learning english is seen as a key to a better life for many. I climbed Mount Rinjani two days before I visited Bright Course Foundation. On Rinjani I found from my guide that he learned to speak english so that he didn't have to be a porter any more. Porters carry 20kg up the 3000 m high mountain, supported on a length of bamboo resting on one shoulder. He cried and his shoulder bled to start with but this was the only paying job he could find without speaking english.

If you are interested in volunteering in person here please drop me a message. When I stayed at the school I was very impressed with the students' willingness to learn. Some students were more shy than others. Allowing students the opportunity to practise and see them come out of their shells was personally rewarding. There was an abundance of locally produced delicious food on offer during my stay too which made it very enjoyable.