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IDEP Aceh Recovery Update #11
Thursday, January 27, 2005 1:51 PM
The following is an exerpt from one of our regular updates which were designed to enlist support and increase the coordination of relief efforts for the survivors of the Tsunami in Aceh & North Sumatra.

DIRECT DISASTER RELIEF | PARTNER PROGRAMS “RAPID RESPONSE” | INFORMATION-EDUCATION | INDEX OF UPDATES

Aceh Aid at IDEP
Yesterday marked one month from the day of the Tsunami disaster which took the lives of almost 200,000 people in Indonesia. Since that time, many people and organizations have been working around the clock to deliver help to people in need. The challenges have been myriad and unfortunately the task at hand is still enormous. Here at AAAI we are continuing to distribute direct aid and humanitarian support on the ground in Aceh on an ongoing basis while programs for disaster recovery are being prepared. Aceh Aid at IDEP would like to take this opportunity to give special thanks to all those that made this first stage of direct aid delivery to the people of Aceh possible, including the Ubud staff, and volunteers both on Bali and in Aceh. This team has worked 24/7 for the past month to make Aceh Aid at IDEP a reality.

DIRECT DISASTER RELIEF
On January 21st the Sumber Rejeki Baru (Source of New Hope) ended its relief work along the western seaboard of Naggroe Aceh Darusalam province. The Rejeki headed back to Padang to go into dry dock for some much-needed work on its ailing propeller. The Rejeki was chartered by Aceh Aid at IDEP with the generous support of Rip Curl, AUSAID, Surfer Girl, Quiksilver, and many other donors at a cost of 500 million Rp/US$55,000, which included the boat and relief supplies purchased in Padang. The Rejeki also carried hundreds of aid buckets assembled by the IDEP Bucket Brigade in Ubud and in Padang.

During its journey which began on the January 4, the Rejeki delivered urgently-needed aid to the devastated town of Calang. The decision to go to Calang was made when the Aceh Aid team in Bali made contact with Ade and WAHLI (Friends of the Earth-Indonesia) volunteers who had just arrived on the ground in Calang. They confirmed that Calang had not received any substantial food aid or supplies. in the two weeks following the Tsunami.

After an initial drop of supplies, it became clear that the only presence on the ground at the time, the TNI (Indonesian military), were largely concentrating on clearing roads into the district. The Rejeki was the only source of appropriate nutrition and care that the community of Calang were receiving. The team leader of the Rejeki decided to go to Banda Aceh (see map) to attempt to get cooperation from the large agencies there to restock the boat. The Rejeki was reloaded with relief goods including sugar, cooking stoves, rice, milk powder, biscuits, mosquito nets, blankets, tarps, jerry cans and tents.

IDEP purchased 297 million rupiah (US$33,000) worth of goods in Banda Aceh including dried fish, tools, buckets, hose, pipes, milk powder, coffee, milk toothbrushes, toothpaste, sardines, soap, laundry soap, tomato sauce, eggs, dried fish, tarps, kerosene, corrugated metal roofing, and more. In Banda Aceh Igor O’Neill and Patrick Anderson from Walhi, and Pete Morris from Greenpeace helped IDEP with logistics coordination. Aboard the Rejeki when it departed Banda Aceh were staff from GOAL, GAA, World Food Program, and IOM, as well as a film crew from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Cooperation) and a media team from Christian Science Monitor. The ABC story is due to be aired this week.

The Rejeki has provided approximately +400 tons of food and other aid to the communities of Calang and Lhokkruet over the past few weeks. This work could not have been possible without the unrelenting work of the Calang ground team led by Ade, who made distribution of these goods to the community possible. It could also not have happened without a strong leader at the helm. Sam Shultz (IDEP volunteer) pushed on from Nias to other areas which were in more in desperate need for the emergency aid the Rejeki was carrying. Reloading was made possible thanks to support from Lee Downey, IDEP volunteer.

On January 18th the Rejeki, stopped at a town called Lhokkruet above Calang on the west coast of Aceh. It found a community of around 7,000 people who had not been supplied with aid or help since December 26, apart from intermittent helicopter drops. The AAAI team were able to deliver food packages and tools to the surviving community there.

One month to date after the tsunami hit, the above describes the situation for many smaller towns and villages on the western coast between the major towns of Leyeun, Calang and Meulaboh. Villages in these areas still require urgent attention to recover their livelihoods and return some sense of autonomy in their lives. The area is still completely inaccessible by road. The Rejeki was able to fill a gaping hole in relief efforts for a time.

ACEH AID at IDEP thanks all the volunteers, partners, donors, and Bali-based team that made the Sumber Rejeki Baru live up to its name: A Source of New Hope. AAAI intends to continue its efforts to support the delivery of much needed aid to these isolated communities.

PARTNER PROGRAMS: "RAPID RESPONSE"”
AAAI has a rapid response grant program for NGOs and local groups on the ground in Aceh supporting them during the emergency relief phase. Fifteen projects have been funded to date for a total of 589,193,100 Rp/US$65,465. Some examples are:

SUMATRAN ORANGUTAN SOCIETY/ORANGUTAN INFORMATION CENTER in Medan and WALHI SUMATRA UTARA/Friends of the Earth Indonesia- North Sumatra (Each 8,500,000 Rp/US$940) for satellite phones to enable communications support for SOS-OIC aid operations between Medan and Banda Aceh; and for WALHI Sumatra Utara aid operations between Medan and Meulaboh. These phones have enabled communications of updates and urgent needs reliably among partners.

Yayasan Leuser Lestari (25,500,000 Rp/US$2780) in Medan for ten volunteers to carry out short-term recovery and aid distribution in Lhoknga, focusing on IDP support, gathering information, area clean-up, and providing basic medical services, and food aid by creating a community kitchen. YLL is a member of the Give A Hand for Aceh coalition.

GIVE A HAND FOR ACEH (88,718,800 Rp/US$9,850) to support their relief projects in Brawe, Madina, and Nias to provide body removal, livelihood recovery, lighting and water, health education and places for praying.

WALHI Riau/Friends of the Earth (109,905,000 Rp/US$12,200) to develop sanitation, water systems, and temporary accommodation with privacy for families, especially women. This project is being carried out by a team of 24 volunteers, including 5 sanitation experts, in four remote IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps in Banda Aceh.

INFORMATION-EDUCATION
COMMUNITY BASED CRISIS RESPONSE (CBCR) manual. The CBCR manual includes guidelines for the three phases of disaster management: Mitigation, Response and Recovery. It includes simple and culturally appropriate tools for rapid needs assessment, and guidelines for delivery of appropriate aid that are now being used on the ground in Aceh. On January 1st IDEP began distributing copies of the draft version (in Indonesian) to various organizations operating on the ground in Aceh. IDEP had completed this manual to final draft stage before the tsunami on December 26th

An addition, IDEP quickly produced simple fact sheets outlining key issues of post-disaster health and sanitation, and a booklet which covers information about tsunamis, sanitation, nutrition, women’s issues and tips for post traumatic stress self help. 10,000 copies of both of these publications has been printed and will distributed in Aceh through IDEP’s partner organizations. You can see these publications