Tomorrow, Aceh

Apologies for the long time since my past post. This week has been a rush. I am heading to Aceh tomorrow, to begin work there as the Information/Communications Manager. This is similar to the work that I have been doing in Jakarta, only to a much more extreme degree. I will be completing the Situation Report, or SitRep, which is a complete (or as complete as possible) listing of the work that is accomplished by all the Save programs in Aceh. In addition, I am responsible for grant tracking, or figuring out where we have spent the money that we have been given. And, thirdly, I am working with the media. This means that any news agency that is looking for information, someone to interview, etc, goes through me. I have a conference call tomorrow with the Washington D.C. Save the Children office to talk about media.

Aurgh! As far as I can tell, the emergency response in Aceh is winding down. This means that the main issues have generally been dealt with: people have enough food, they are living somewhere, and the bodies have all been picked up. People are beginning to search through the rubble where there homes were, and they have marked, with red flags, where they want to rebuild. What the end of the emergency phase does not mean is that any actual problems have been solved. People do not have homes yet, and the 400,000-500,000 people who have been displaced are still largely living with relatives and in refugee camps. People do not have a stable source of income yet. Schools are being cleaned, but they are not really being used. Aid agencies are all there, but the initial in-pouring of staff is drying out, and the staff that have been there since the beginning are burning, or have burned, out. One of our shelter specialists, who just finished his work in Aceh, described it as a time to make or break. If organizations begin to leave at this point, almost nothing will be accomplished. People will have been kept alive, but not given anything to rebuild their lives. If there is a successful transition into a long-term support plan, emphasizing more development strategies than emergency relief, then all will be worthwhile.

So, this is what I am heading into. The plan is currently to be there for two weeks. We will see. Without actually being there, I am wary to say that I would like to be there for longer. But I am very interested in doing program-based work, which means actually directly working with the communities, instead of the step-away work I am doing right now. I am particularly interested in the livelihoods program, which provides jobs for local people repairing the infrastructure that has been destroyed by the tsunami. Cleaning out schools, etc. Anyhow, I will certainly meet people who are doing this interesting work when I get up to Aceh. And being up there will give me a better idea concerning how I actually feel about the work that Save, and other relief organizations, have been doing.

I will certainly attempt to keep better, more regular posts when I am up in Aceh. From what Lisa (who I will be replacing) tells me, there is hardly enough time to sleep, as people are working so hard. I don’t know what this means for time for writing. But I will do my best.