Need-Request-Get: From Emergency to Empowerment?

Banda Aceh is looking cleaner. The KFC re-opened (yes, there is a KFC in Banda Aceh, and yes, it is weird). Areas of destruction are as blank as ever, but they are much cleaner. In many places there is nothing left but dirt. All of the remains of houses and lives have been picked up by scrap metal collectors, or cleared off by those who own the land. Or perhaps those that hope they can lay claim to the land.

There is not, however, much rebuilding going on. The refugee camps are still up, and they are as busy as ever. The government has been building barracks for people. They are long-house style buildings but without a large enough verandah to make it useful. So many of the barracks are not up to reasonable standards and people are refusing to move into them. The government, in fact, ordered a halt on building so that they could look into the quality. There is a little bit of spontaneous (not NGO- or Gov’t initiated) rebuilding going on. People are rebuilding in the areas where they used to live (obviously). The problem is, many of these communities were started in areas that had water sources. Many of these water sources have now been destroyed by the tsunami. There is a serious shortage of drinkable water. So, aid organizations have to decide whether or not they are going to support communities that are returning to unsustainable areas. The daily headaches of the shelter coordinator.

Then there is the issue of how long INGOs are going to be here. For the military, it is clear. They are out on March 26th. There is a medical boat that was sent by the Mexican army that got here late last week. They took 42 days to get here from Mexico, and now they have to get out. The question is, now will March 26th affect the INGOs. The current word from the government is that all internationals have to leave Aceh by the 26th, and will only be allowed back in if they get a Social-Cultural Visa. This visa can only be gotten outside of Indonesia. So, there are plans for a mass exodus of internationals to Singapore for what could be up to a week’s wait for a visa. And then, there is the question of what organizations will be let back in to Indonesia. The government is saying that it is doing an assessment of all the INGOs that are in Aceh. Then, it will use the information about what people are doing to decide if they can stay. The organizations that are working in the sectors that the government determines it needs help with will stay. Currently, I have plans to go to Singapore on the 20th of March, and get back as soon as I can. But, this plan of the governments seems rather ludicrous, and it may have to change. So, as with everything here, flux.

The NGO presence, up to now, has remained very strong. All the organizations I have mentioned are still here, and most have long term plans to stay. We’ll see what the government has to say about that. There is unbelievable funding here, and there are many people with experience and knowledge. Still, there are so many roadblocks to substantial progress. One of the main issues is that of the ownership of the achievements. Every sector that is working here has coordinating groups, and each of these coordinating groups has a chair, or a lead agency. Lead agencies can make claims for all the achievements in the sectors. So, there are massive massive turf battles over who gets to be coordinating agency for their sector. In-arguing and lack of coordination is one of the biggest problems being faced by the relief effort in Aceh.

The main problem with this is that it means that there are still communities who are not getting what they need. When I visit camps, there are still basic needs that need to be satisfied. Decent sanitation. A reliable source of drinking water. School uniforms. Things like this, that are, in fact, being provided by hundreds of organizations. There is not, however, a way for people to come to these large organizations and express a need for something. Some local NGOs know enough about the way that things work to come to our door and ask. Generally, I meet with these people, and I can generally get them whatever they need. But for normal people, there is no established way to request what they need. There is simply a break completing the circle of need, request, get. Now it is just need–get —as long as the organizations know you have the need. Or perhaps that you just happen to be there. This, to my thought, is a major problem.

Right now, some of this is being solved by the small NGOs and the individual good-doers who are wandering around and picking their own little projects. For example, a guy named Dr. Cary who actually works with a medical NGO, but who decided to adopt an orphanage that he came across in his work. Or Paul, a guy from Children on the Edge, a tiny NGO funded by the Body Shop (?!), who is looking for projects to do right now. He will find something small, a gap, and he will fill it. But these are the people who are almost definitely going to be kicked out on the 26th. Then there will be no way for those who have lost out on the already organized distributions of aid to find their way to the supplies and food that NGOs and the UN so desperately wants to hand out. I am not sure what can fill this place.