A trip to Indonesia as part of a Department of Foreign Affairs philanthropy delegation has revealed how Australian philanthropic funds, even in small amounts, can make a significant difference in other countries, writes Pro Bono Australia Founder Karen Mahlab AM in her latest blog.

Recently I returned from Indonesia with a full and informed head.

At the just opened Australian embassy we had extensive briefings on Indonesia and on philanthropy in Indonesia.

Many of you will know that Australia’s Foreign Aid budget was slashed in 2014 cut from $600 million per annum to $374 million in 2015.

We visited two wonderfully welcoming schools complete with musical bands and singing who are twinned with Australian schools as part of AIIs BRIDGE program. One was an Islamic school a madrass and one a Catholic school. Again, they were wonderfully creative groups and people such as Papermoon puppet theatre, the art space Komunitas Salhara, and the filmmaker Garin Nugroho

Last but by no means least, we met with women’s empowerment project MAMPU who deal with disabled and disadvantaged women across Indonesia in a very local and real way, including young Indonesian woman, Lusi Efriani and her “Batik Girl” dolls the product of her innovative social enterprise in which Barbie-like dolls dressed in traditional costume are made by female prison inmates. It may be a mere drop in the bucket, and there’s no way philanthropy can or should replace foreign aid budgets, but in this increasingly connected, increasingly polarised world, independent philanthropic dollars, as drops in the ocean, can cause many ripples even with small amounts.