ACT Interview

Indonesia 05/06

June 16, 2006

Lesvi (Vivi) Roselim, information officer for ACT member Church World Service Indonesia talks to John Nduna, director of ACT International.

                           Simon Sengkerij, ACT International

John Nduna took up his appointment as director of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in April this year. One of his first field trips was to Indonesia, where he met with the three local members of ACT: YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU), Yayasan Tanggul Bencana Indonesia (YTBI) and Church World Service (CWS) Indonesia.

Accompanied by Mieke Weeda, the ACT International program officer for Asia, Pacific and Europe, it was Nduna’s first visit to the country. Originally from Zambia, he comes with both international and local experience in the fields of humanitarian emergencies and development and was the director of Church Ecumenical Action in Sudan (CEAS), which is based in Nairobi, Kenya, before joining ACT to head up the Coordinating Office for the alliance. Nduna visited Medan, Bali and Yogyakarta for meetings and a field trip to the site of the recent eartquake.

LVR (CWS): What is the purpose of your visit?

JN (ACT): As the new director of ACT International, part of my program is to have an orientation with our members around the world. Indonesia lies in a significant region for us. One reason for this is that our members are responding to several emergencies in Indonesia—the tsunami to begin with, and now, the recent earthquake in Yogyakarta. There was a meeting that had been arranged prior to the earthquake, and I wanted to take advantage of this to meet with the ACT members.

Apart from orientating myself, this visit is also important, as it allows me to hear directly from the ACT members what their responses to the tsunami have been and more recently to the latest earthquake. Therefore, part of my trip will include a visit to Java.

LVR (CWS): Will you have time to visit the tsunami-affected areas?

JN (ACT): Unfortunately I will not be able to travel to the tsunami-affected areas this time. Perhaps when I visit next … hopefully by then people will have been resettled back in their villages and homes. Unfortunately, as my visit is relatively short, I cannot travel to Aceh, but certainly hope to do so one day.

LVR (CWS): And your impression of the ACT members’ response to the tsunami?

JN (ACT): I think it has been good. ACT has raised over $100 million (US) for the tsunami response in Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka. The ACT alliance has really responded overwhelmingly to the disaster and the massive humanitarian emergency it created. The assistance we provided has also been significant in many ways: not only in terms of material support, but also at the level of psychological support through our many psychosocial interventions. Our global response therefore has been significant and special mention must be made of our members in Indonesia (CWS, YEU and YTBI) for the way in which they implemented the many humanitarian programs on behalf of the rest of the alliance. They’ve done a tremendous job and I’m very appreciative of that.

LVR (CWS): Can you tell us your expectations, what would you like to see when you visit Yogyakarta?

JN (ACT): I believe that people affected by disasters should above all be treated with dignity. Disasters—as devastating as they are—are only ever one part of people’s lives, in other words, a small, but significant part, if one measures a whole life. It is often something that people want to deal with and leave behind, so that they can return to their normal lives. (We can assist with improving people’s livelihoods.) My expectations? That we should support people as their lives return to normal, with a clear focus on the transition from relief into long-term development work. And of course ensure that we contribute to improving people’s lives.

LVR (CWS): We are facing the recovery phase now (as the President of Indonesia has stated) now that the emergency phase is over. How long do you think ACT will support this response?

JN (ACT): ACT’s mandate is clear. We respond to emergencies—emergencies meaning that we are involved in relief and rehabilitation. But what we would like to see is that the rehabilitation part of our response leads to long-term sustainability of the projects in terms of development. And although we are not directly involved in development, we would like to be the pillar, in other words, the work that we are doing now, should be a pillar on which the ongoing development work can rest. As far as support from the ACT Coordinating Office goes, the appeal will run to the end of 2007. Hopefully, our partners here working in development will continue to develop such programs. As far as the tsunami emergency is concerned, we are looking to respond (through the ACT appeal mechanism) till the end of 2007. And hopefully yourselves, CWS, YTB and YEU, will also achieve your objectives in terms of the work that you’re doing in this emergency. And we will give you the support that you need from ACT Geneva.

LVR (CWS): As we know, there are many disasters that have happened lately in this region and it is predicted that more will happen. How does ACT Geneva anticipate this situation?

JN (ACT): It is a very important question. We hope that emergency preparedness will be at the core of our members’ way of working. I think we should be prepared in anticipation of more disasters and more emergencies happening. When I say ‘prepared’, it doesn’t mean we should stock up on blankets and tents and relief items, that’s not only preparedness. But in practical terms, in terms of the kinds of shelter we provide for instance, we should also make sure that we provide shelters that are much more resistant to the kinds of natural disasters that occur here in this region. But, our preparedness should go far beyond that. We should be able to prepare the community to be able to cope, to handle the situation to their best ability when emergencies happen and be able to minimize the disastrous effect on the community itself.

Indonesia is a disaster prone area and we need to be prepared to face the disasters. There are ways of doing things that will allow us to be able to support communities in such ways that we can contribute to minimizing the loss of lives, injuries suffered, damage to properties … that’s important. All our members should look at these ways of working. And when our members move into the development phase of their work, we should also be looking at disaster mitigation as one of the key principles. And ACT can support the members in emergency disaster preparedness through setting up training opportunities within the communities as an example.