the surfing nurse

Category: Volunteering

  • Bringing hope and healing aboard Africa Mercy

    Bringing hope and healing aboard Africa Mercy

    Serving Through Mercy Ships

    I’m volunteer as a ward nurse (pediatric ICU) caring for patients after maxillofacial surgery on the Africa Mercy in Madagascar. For me, nursing is more than a job – as colleagues at Charité would joke, I’m not in it for the money. It’s a calling to stand with children and families when they need hope, care, and a chance to heal. I’ll be offering my time, skills, and heart to provide follow-up care and nursing support where local resources are limited.

    Mission from 12 July 2026 to 12 September 2026 (preliminary end date)

    What Mercy Ships Does

    Mercy Ships partners with host countries to bring free, life-changing surgeries, dental care, and medical training to people who would otherwise have little or no access to safe healthcare. In Madagascar, the Africa Mercy is serving patients in Toamasina, with thousands of free surgeries and dental procedures planned, alongside training for local healthcare professionals to strengthen long-term surgical and nursing care. As a pediatric nurse, I’m honored to be part of a mission that combines immediate healing with long-term impact.

    How You Can Help

    I’m asking for your help to cover my volunteer expenses. Any contribution helps. To give you an idea of what donations can cover, here are some of my costs:

    • TB skin test: 20 US$
    • Diphtheria and tetanus vaccine: 28 US$
    • Malaria prophylaxis medication, required from 2 days before travel to Africa until 4 weeks after departure: 170 Malaysian Ringgit
    • New set of appropriate clothing, since I’ll be setting aside my “bikini kinda live” style for the next two months: 300 Malaysian Ringgit, 28US$
    • Entry visa: 35 US$
    • Monthly expenses for recreation
    • Expenses during time off

    My application process started at the end of last year, and my first assignment could have begun in March 2026. However, progress in my Australian and New Zealand registration process allowed me to postpone my mission. That is why the costs are listed in different currencies, since I was preparing for service while in Cambodia and Malaysia.

    Donate by Bank Transfer

    Any donation goes to Mercy Ships:

    SozialBank

    IBAN: DE85 6012 0500 6000 7000 80
    BIC: BFSWDE33STG

    Purpose of Bank Transfer: Sarah Degethof 7775 + your address

    Your address is required so Mercy Ships can create a donation receipt, allowing you to deduct the donated amount from your taxes.

    Love, Sarah Simone

  • 410 kg of Trash: My River Clean-Up with Sungai Watch In Bali

    410 kg of Trash: My River Clean-Up with Sungai Watch In Bali

    I came across this NGO in my Lonely Planet: Sungai Watch. The organisation works to stop plastic and other waste from reaching Indonesia’s oceans by cleaning rivers, installing waste barriers, and involving local communities in the process. Volunteers can sign up for clean-ups at different locations, usually for around four hours. I decided to join one on a Friday morning.

    The meeting points are often shared as Google Maps coordinates, because the clean-ups take place far from Bali’s polished tourist scenery — often behind residential areas, along riverbanks, and near illegal dumping sites. Sungai Watch has run weekly volunteer clean-ups since 2022, alongside its river-barrier and waste-sorting work.

    I am staying near Keramas Beach on Bali’s east coast, not far from Casa De Brillo (= home). Here, the beach is all black sand and a powerful left reef break, with local surfers flying through the air. But the river we were cleaning that day eventually flows into the ocean. I was curious to see this less visible side of Bali and to learn more about the island’s waste-management challenges.

    Three other volunteers -from Italy, Japan, and France- and I joined the regular Sungai Watch crew behind a residential area. People had been throwing household waste into the river: bags of daily rubbish, clothes, mattresses, tiles, cement bags, and construction debris. Along the riverbank, we found burned waste and the remains of daily offerings, including sweet wrappers.

    By the time we arrived at around 8:00 a.m., the regular crew was already working. We continued until about noon, then weighed what we had collected: 410 kg of rubbish.

    The number was shocking, but what stayed with me was how little visual difference four hours of work made. The crew returns every Friday, yet waste continues to appear in the river faster than it can be removed. One clean-up cannot solve a problem that begins upstream, at household level, and within broader systems for collection, disposal, education, and enforcement.

    Bali does have policies aimed at reducing plastic waste, including a provincial regulation on single-use plastics, but implementation and enforcement remain uneven. Illegal dumping and open burning are continuing challenges, which means community-led clean-ups are essential, but they cannot replace reliable waste collection and long-term public education.

    Volunteering with Sungai Watch was dirty, physically demanding, and at times frustrating. Still, it was one of the most meaningful things I did in Bali. It made me look beyond the beaches, surf breaks, cafés, villas and perfect sceneries you can see on instagram.

    Four hundred and ten kilograms later, the river looked only slightly different. But I did not.

    Sarah Simone cleaning a river bank in Bali
    Two ladies getting dirty during a river clean-up with Sungai Watch
    Proud collector of 410 kg of trash