Over the past 17 years, the Bukit Lawang Trust has worked together with our project partners, volunteers students and Beneficiaries to implement long term sustainable, positive change in and around the community of Bukit Lawang in North Sumatra. 

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Unfortunately, due to the unprecedented global impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we had to make the sad decision to cancel our volunteer placements throughout 2020 and the beginning of 2021. This decision was made in order to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and importantly, to keep our students, staff and volunteers safe. 

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The good news is, that with the introduction of several vaccines around the world and various other successful medical advancements and with a widespread reduction in cases around the world, borders are starting to reopen and travel is once again becoming an option. Although tourism is not yet allowed in Indonesia, we anticipate that this will restart in the summer of 2021.

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In the meantime, our team will continue to monitor the situation and guidance from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the local government advice and guidance in the UK and Indonesia. 

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Whilst this does mean we have had to postpone all volunteer placements for the time being, the wider impact of the pandemic means that our work is more vital then ever before. That's why we've introduced digital placements that you can do from the safety of your own home. In addition we are busy putting in place strict safety measures to ensure that our operations meet the international health and safety standards before we commence volunteer placements again later this year. 

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The response to COVID-19 across the world has greatly impacted all of our programs, however the situation is ever changing and we expect to be running placements as usual by July this year. We are contacting volunteers who have booked onto placements in short the term prior to their start date to give them real time updates on the situation as it unfurls, however if you are booked onto a program before July 2021 and have not heard from us, please get in touch. 

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As always the health and wellbeing of all of our students, staff and volunteers is at the heart of everything that we do. If the situation worsens and we deem it too much of a risk to go ahead with any planned programs, we will take further action to rearrange placements and organise safety strategies. Additionally, we have now introduced a range of safety measures including mandatory mask wearing inside, Temperature checks on arrival, reduced class sizes, outdoor lessons wherever possible, and regular hand washing at the start and end of all classes. 

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If you have any questions and/or concerns about COIVD-19 in relation to your placement or the Bukit Lawang Trust in general, please don't hesitate to get in touch, either by email at bukitlawangtrustcenter@gmail.com or chat live with us here using the chat logo in the bottom right of the page. you can also send us a message on any of our social media platforms and one of our team will get back to you as soon as possible. 

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Updated 10/02/2021

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Additionally, we now require all volunteers coming on our 2021 placements to have had either a full course of an accepted Vaccine (email us to find out which vaccines we accept) or a PCR COVID-19 Test with a negative result within 7 days of arriving on your placement. 

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Updated 22/03/2021

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We have now made the decision to make a COVID-19 Vaccination a compulsory requirement for all volunteers, staff or interns on any of our programs. This decision is based on the current guidance we have from both the Indonesian government and the UK government. As well as general updates from the CDC & WHO. 

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In line with this policy change, we are also postponing all volunteer placements in Sumatra until January 2022. 

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Updated 18/10/2021

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We have now reduced our safety measures in line with current guidelines from the WHO and the Indonesian Government. From today our staff are no longer required to wear masks, and we are no longer requiring our visitors and students to wear masks. However we continue to conduct hand washing twice daily as part of our Kindergarten classes and All staff and volunteers have a COVID-19 vaccine before working with us, as per our safety policy. 

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