Swiss inspiration that's changed lives of sulphur porters of Java
Chef, author and trekker shows the difference one person can make, as he raises donations and harnesses talent from his home country to transform the lives of sulphur miners on the Kawah Ijen volcano
When Swiss chef, author and seasoned mountain trekker Heinz von Holzen first climbed Kawah Ijen, a volcano in East Java, Indonesia, he was appalled to see the weight of sulphur porters had to carry up and down the slopes.
Each porter makes two trips daily, carrying on one shoulder with a bamboo pole loads of between 60kg and 90kg of solidified sulphur mined from the volcano. The steep hike takes at least three hours each way. Add to the strenuous labour the toxic fumes they’re inhaling on a daily basis, and it’s not surprising that their average life expectancy is just 45 years.
WATCH the story of the sulphur miners of Ijen
He turned his focus to the porters’ children, and this year raised enough to pay for 100 of them to go to school for a whole school year. “Hopefully, with proper education we’ll be able to give the children the opportunity to not have to do the porter work,” he says. “Now we have got three schools that we support, so whenever we make payments for the kids we go directly to them.”