Dateline ACT

Indonesia 0806

Welcomes and thank yous exchanged as new houses are handed over to tsunami survivors

By Abdi R. Tarigan, ACT International

Pidie, Aceh, Indonesia, July 25, 2006—A year and a half after a massive tsunami hit Indonesia’s coast, residents of a small village in the country’s Aceh province, which received the brunt of the devastation, have come home.

Festivities marked the day earlier this month in Lampu Kawat, where villagers were left homeless by the December 26, 2004, tsunami, when 124 new houses were handed over to tsunami survivors. The houses were built by Church World Service (CWS), one of three members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) in Indonesia, which has been providing relief and rehabilitation since the tsunami.

A group of Acehnese children performed Ranpu Lampuan, a traditional dance, to welcome visiting local government officials and staff from ACT and CWS in a two-hour ceremony on July 12. Residents of the new houses as well as carpenters who had built them were in the audience.

“On behalf of Lampu Kawat residents, we would like to express our highest gratitude for ACT, which has built our houses,” said Nurdin, a representative of the village’s residents, in his welcome speech. “We lived in emergency tents and barracks for eight months. There was no privacy, and [they were] uncomfortable. But now, everything has changed and returned to normal. Now we can occupy our new houses.”

Before his speech, Nurdin, along with his two neighbors, Bukhari and Wahyudi, signed and received a letter from CWS program coordinator Michael Koeniger as a symbol of CWS-ACT’s handover of the houses to the villagers.

“Before ACT built our houses, we regularly received aid, especially food, blankets and medicine, from CWS-ACT after the disaster. Our wooden houses were destroyed by the tsunami, but now, they are rebuilt and we can live in them. Thanks again, CWS-ACT. You know we are Muslim, but you helped us very sincerely,” said Nurdin.*

“The difference of religion does not make human beings separate from each other and unwilling to help each other. We are very proud that ACT helps us truly. Its work is evidence that humanity does not always see the difference,” said Ismail, a leader in the village, at the ceremony.

The general secretary of the Indonesian government’s Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) in Aceh-Nias, Ramli Ibrahim, said, “In the name of BRR Aceh-Nias, we would like to express our great appreciation for ACT-CWS for doing humanitarian work in Aceh and Nias. CWS-ACT carries out humanitarian program in line with the BRR principles - community participation and helping the people regardless of religion and race.”

According to Ibrahim, humanitarian aid agencies have pledged to build 126,449 housing units in Aceh and Nias. The three ACT members in Indonesia plan to construct 1,870 housing units in Aceh and Nias. Out of this overall total, 22 percent of the housing is complete.

“This performance of ACT members in their housing programs in Aceh is really good,” Ibrahim said. “We would like to say thanks for ACT in its reconstruction program.”

As the ceremony continued with a ribbon cutting in front of one of the finished houses in the village, a Muslim preacher sprinkled water and rice on it, an Acehnese tradition called Peusi Jeuk, which blesses the house and its occupants and calls for it to be stronger and a pleasant place to live.

* CWS, and all other members of ACT, are signatories to the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief, which states: “Aid is given regardless of the race, creed or nationality of the recipients and without adverse distinction of any kind. Aid priorities are calculated on the basis of need alone” (Principle 2); and “Aid will not be used to further a particular political or religious standpoint” (Principle 3).

Abdi R. Tarigan is resources staff of the Action by Churches Together (ACT) International coordinating office in Medan, Indonesia.