Bali’s Angel of Mercy

Buy a villa with a pool and spend your days drinking coconuts on the beach. That’s what most people who retire in Bali imagine themselves doing, and British fashion designer Robert Epstone was no different. At least, not at first.

“In 2008 I came to Bali for a friend’s wedding. I fell in love with the place and decided then and there I would move to the island,” I was once told by Robert, who died this week. “A year later I did so, ostensibly to retire. But that idea flew out the window the first time I saw the poverty in Bali – people living in slum-like conditions next to five-star hotels where tourists holiday with blinkers on. I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing.”

At first Robert joined the local Rotary Club, which sent him to the drought-stricken Indonesian island of Sumba to dig wells. But he soon became frustrated with the red tape. In 2011, he co-founded Solemen, a charity to help the most disadvantaged and disabled people in Bali. He also devised a novel way to raise funds: he walked around Bali, a distance of 535km, without shoes in solidarity with the poor, who are often barefoot in Bali.

“I trained for six months doing a few kilometres a day but suddenly I was doing 25km a day,” he said. “My feet couldn’t handle that kind of punishment and were ripped to shreds. But I refused to stop going barefoot and five years later, after walking around three times, I raised a million dollars.

“At some point, I also started dressing a little like a pirate with these long dreadlocks full of beads and knots. The Rotary Club told me I would raise more money if I cut my hair and wore shoes but I said ‘No, I have worn suits all my life and I am now going to dress how I want to’. It’s worked as a point of difference because people remember me.

“Once I walked into the office of the CEO of a big bank in Jakarta and he said to me ‘How dare you come into my office without shoes?’ I told him about my pledge to raise a million dollars for Bali’s poor and we talked for an hour. At the end of it, we were best friends. That’s how I win people over, by being natural, by being me.”

By 2020, Solemen was feeding 2400 disabled people and providing free medical care to thousands more in Bali. But then the pandemic hit and Solemen’s income, much of which came from tourists in Bali, disappeared.

When I met Robert for the first time a few months into the pandemic at his office in a crumbling old building near Bali’s Kuta Beach, the then 71-year-old was working furiously on crazy schemes to keep Solemen afloat.

A few months later, Robert was diagnosed with cancer. He spent the next few years going in and out of hospitals in Europe, though he never stopped working to help Bali’s poor, and he never gave up hope.

“How am I coping?” he told me the last time we spoke. “Well at times like these I think of the slogan we have on our T-shirts and bumper stickers: HOPE. Statistically, more people recover from serious illness if they have hope, it’s a medical fact. Giving up is easy. But as long as you have hope and compassion and you don’t give up, you can survive. I plan to beat this illness and get back to Bali as soon as possible to continue with my work.”

On October 2, Robert lost his battle against cancer. It is fitting that Robert, who was of the Jewish faith and a king among men, died on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, the day humanity was created and God became king.

Robert may be gone but his charity, now called Sole Family Bali, lives on and is still feeding and caring for the poor in Bali. To make a financial donation, or buy a food box during your next holiday in Bali, visit solefamily.org/id.