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n Australian citizen, Michele Buur, was happy to deliver two wheelchairs to Restiti and her sister Alit at their home in a remote village of Yeh Panas near Kintamani resort, some 80 kilometers north of Denpasar.

The wheelchairs were donated by Lion Club Brisbane and were transported from Australia to Bali by Virgin Air.

Jero Widiyani, the mother of the two disabled teenagers, shed tears when she received the gifts for her two daughters.

“I was speechless and very grateful to receive the wheelchairs for my daughters. The village was also happy to know that help had finally arrived,” said Widiyani, a single mother of four daughters.

Asana Vebeke Lengkong, a humanitarian activist, said that activists were trying to work together to help families with disabled members to receive necessary equipment and other much-needed assistance.

“Some friends provided useful information and others tried to find donors to help them,” Lengkong said.

Based on data from the provincial administration, Bali has 250,000 people with various physical disabilities. Only 3 percent of them, around 8,000 people, have received assistance from the government.

Yakkum Bali Foundation or the Rehabilitation Network for the Physically Challenged said that many parents kept their disabled children from the public for various reasons.

Nineteen-year-old Restiti and her 13-year-old sister Alit were just examples. The two girls, their mother Widiyani said, did not leave their home because they could not walk.

Widiyani, a divorcee, does not have the resources to help improve her daughter’s health and social condition.

Sang Ayu Putu Eka Sujiwati, Yakkum Foundation’s accountant, said that the girls were proactive despite their physical limitations.

“The girls can sew clothes and traditional Balinese kebaya blouses,” said Sujiwati, who is disabled herself.

People can provide help in the form of technical and marketing support as well as professional training, she said.

Knowing Restiti’s sewing skills, Iwan I Gunawan, inventory manager of PT Quicksilver Indonesia in Bali, has planned to set up a special booth to promote Restiti’s clothes at girl’s surf cloth counters.

“We have made an offer to Restiti to sew clothes for brand Surfer Girls,” Iwan said.