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Tsunami Relief

Current Relief and Recovery

When the tsunami struck in 2004, AFSC supported emergency medical teams of doctors, pharmacists, and volunteers to provide mobile medical services in Meulaboh.  Within several months, AFSC was working with Acehnese partners to offer an array of emergency services, including:

• Material aid and food distribution
• Community organizing to revive people’s livelihood
• Support for children’s centers
• Provision of clean water, housing and sanitation             

The woodshop is funded partially by AFSC and is helping the Dayah boarding school to finance children's education and daily needs.

As more and more aid agencies began working in Aceh, AFSC decided to concentrate its efforts on northern and eastern Aceh, and some parts of northern Sumatra.  These areas were all affected by the tsunami, but received less attention because 1) the damage was more sporadic, based on the geography of the coastline and 2) the area was still experiencing violent conflict months after the tsunami had ended fighting in most parts of Aceh.  A peace agreement eight months after the tsunami finally put an end to most of the violence, but the area remains underserved.

The rebuilding of Aceh infrastructure is almost complete, and most aid agencies expect to leave the province by 2009.   But while the buildings and roads are relatively easy to rebuild, communities damaged by war and natural disaster are not so easily made whole.  Taken together, the tsunami and the decades of conflict have fractured families and communities and  left a  legacy of distrust, loss, and pain will take years to heal. 

FPRM is one of AFSC Indonesia's local partners. FPRM's current work with AFSC focuses on developing children's creativity and critical thinking skills through out-of-school activities.

AFSC Indonesia has focused  its assistance on local partners doing community level programs. Based on their constituent base and skills, partners have developed programs related to healthcare, women’s income generation, children’s education, and mobilizing young people to help their communities.  AFSC’s Acehnese partners are concerned by the loss of the spirit of self-help and self-sufficiency that was the norm in Aceh before the tsunami.  The aid economy is essentially artificial and there is likely to be a painful period of readjustment ahead. AFSC provides opportunities for partners to network and to explore the challenges of working in post-disaster/post conflict conditions.  Partners are particularly interested in how to address  issues of violence and  how to integrate healing and spirituality into their community based work. 

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