Communities torn apart by tsunami are healing in multi-purpose centres
Anna Berghäll, Banda Aceh – Calang – Meulaboh, Indonesia/Helsinki
The fourth and last multi-purpose complex built with money from Finnish trade unions sprang up in the village of Teunom in February. Already, the cultivation of coconuts and sugar manufacturing are being planned in Teunom as a way to secure self-sufficiency.
The west coast of the province of Aceh on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia suffered most from the tsunami that occurred on December 26 2004. Donations by Finnish trade unions, individuals and the Yle Helps programme of the Finnish broadcasting company has enabled the construction of four multi-purpose complexes for the area that provides the village communities with many kinds of support, services and income-generating opportunities. Three of the office complexes are situated on the coast and one near the capital city Banda Aceh.
The fourth and last of the multi-purpose centres held its opening ceremony in February. The centres which had began their activities earlier on are already far advanced in developing self-sufficiency. Also a small seed nursery has been started in the centre of Teunom. The region produced a lot of coconuts before the tsunami and it is planned to revive coconut cultivation in the multi-purpose centres. The manufacture of chocolate is also being planned.
A leading figure of the Teunom centre is M. Yusuf Daud under whose leadership two other centres are already about to become self-supporting. Financial support to the centres will end this year. Only 20 000 euros are left to be used to support activities as well as strengthening the activities of the local trade union partner TUCC, but after that the centres are supposed to survive without donors’ support.
The first multi-purpose complex in the village of Krueng Sabee under the leadership of M. Yusuf opened a car wash and a water treatment plant. Padang Mancang centre, opened in November and led by Hanisah Abdulla teaches women sewing. Income will be generated by selling the clothes. Land surrounding the centre will be used teach agriculture. International Union for the service sector UNI donated computers to the Padang Mancang centre.
The village leaders donated two hectares of land to the centre. Community support is inevitable in order that the centres would get off to start their activities with full efficiency and also to secure their continuation. Beside the Teunom centre is a village built by British Red Cross in which people are getting settled.
The Executive Director of SASK Hannu Ohvo would like to give special thanks to M. Yusuf but is also very satisfied with the success of the project in general.
”When initiating the project our biggest worry was how the centres would manage. I am really proud that such progress has been achieved in such a short time. People have worked dynamically and worked out how to continue right from the beginning. They have been in contact with other donors and made use of all other opportunities for example with United Nations aid organizations. All the centres have solid support within the population and active leaders”.
Trade union movement also has a human face
The Indonesian private service sector trade union established a local partner of SASK, Trade Union Care Centre (TUCC) to handle the needs of tsunami survivors. The trade union movement in Aceh is young and after the tsunami wanted to show its human face.
“Most people think of a trade union as only a tool for strikes”, says Indonesia’s Central Trade Union Organisation General-Secretary, Indra Yana.
”We wanted to show that we have much more to offer.”
TUCC proved a suitable partner when SASK had to find reconstruction targets with the money donated by trade unions, vocational centres and individuals to the tune of about 300 000 Euros. The co-operation, started three months after the tsunami, began to bear fruits.
Regional secretary of service sector international trade union, Union Network International, Christopher Ng, played an active role in searching for reconstruction projects. Ng and Hannu Ohvo visited Aceh about eight months after the tsunami when still hardly any reconstruction project had begun in the affected area. Aid funds were still sloshing around but starting operations delayed.
”Yusuf said: If you are not serious don’t waste our time. We have gone through the same discussions ten times already with many different non-governmental organizations”, Ng recollects his first meeting with Yusuf.
Yusuf was rescued from the tsunami because he incidentally climbed onto the branch of a palm tree. There are plenty of such rescue tales in Aceh.
In the footsteps of Singapore?
Multi-purpose centres were chosen as reconstruction targets for many different reasons. Aceh has its own strong cultural tradition which there was a systematic attempt to crush during the dictatorship of Suharto in 1967-1998. In the culture of Aceh are the so-called meunasahs which are multiple purpose cultural centres and important gathering places for local communities.
Literally meunasah means mosque, but in the villages mosques have served other purposes than places of prayer. Young people have studied, worked and even lived in them.
The tsunami destroyed many villages’ multi-purpose centres and yet after the catastrophe there was an increased demand for their services. Orphans needed protection and support for school attendance and adults who had lost their means of livelihood needed retraining in order to secure jobs again.
It took a while for reconstruction work to gather speed. But especially after the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a peace agreement in 2005, nothing retarded the efforts of the people of Aceh towards a better future. Civil war – which the locals called “conflict” – lasted 30 years and ended in a peace agreement signed in Helsinki.
In place of the houses wiped away by the surge there are now thousands rebuilt, attractive dwellings. New rugged cars and motorbikes transport the townspeople on their activities. In the wildest visions Aceh is rising in the safety of its new high level infrastructure to become East Asia’s important business centre like its nearest neighbour Singapore.
The people have moved on in their lives. Only earthquakes which occur regularly on the Island of Sumatra produce a crack on the idyll.
However, everyone has not caught with up the new life. Thousands are still housed in temporary barracks waiting to be moved into permanent accommodation, going according to the order of the government’s resettlement programme.
Not even everyone wants to move from their homes into the newly built novelty gleaming houses, rather they want to stay with their relatives. A street running through the village donated by the state of Turkey in the outskirts of Banda Aceh is a desert and weeds are flourishing in the backyards of the uninhabited houses.
The writer visited Aceh in November 2007.
(Photos: Hannu Ohvo (above) and Anna Berghäll)
Towards a more positive trade union image
