The beginning of last week was spent with two reporters from the Daily Mail, a paper in England that collected 15 million pounds for tsunami relief. A large chunk of that they gave to Save the Children, and now they want to see what was done with their money. So, they sent a journalist and a reporter, both named David, to come out and see how their readers’ money has been spent. With them came Save-UK’s Emergencies Media person, named Laura. The first time I ever heard the name Save the Children was when I was watching a PBS news show on the tsunami—I am pretty sure Laura was the guest.
Organizing this trip was just one of the many parts of my job. Although my title is Information and Communications Manager, I also do all the media work and a fair bit of grant reporting. The only part that is totally awful is the grant reporting, and we are going to get someone up here short-term to do that. So, when I learned that the Daily Mail was coming, and I learned what they funded (Child Protection), I scrambled a visit together for them.
The first part of the trip was a tour around the devastated area in Banda Aceh. This is really what people want to see, even if they are here for a totally different reason. This is why everyone is here in the first place. It is not really possible to be flippant about the tsunami devastation. But it is true that I have a pretty good tour that I am now quite good at giving. Take them to the huge boat that was 4 miles out too sea and how is 2 miles inland, take them to the coast, to the intact mosque on the coast line, up by the gutted middle school, out through what used to be the busiest part of town. The Daily Mail was suitably impressed. It is really not possible not to be impressed by the devastation.
And then out of town. The first stop on the tour was Pidie, the next district over. Save the Children works in seven districts, all on the north coast of Aceh. This was the area that Save worked in before the tsunami, when we ran an office of all national staff in Banda Aceh before the tsunami. Pidie is one of the main districts that we are working in. I was taking the journalists to see a PSSA class- a Psychosocial Structured Activities class. What a bad name. It could also be called classroom therapy, or life skills, or any of those other names. What it is a classroom based activity in modules—today we do this, tomorrow we do the following, etc. It takes the place of a class in a school and kids learn to talk about their feelings, deal with trauma, etc.
The kids were great. They were cheerful and said they “love PSSA class!” and that it had made them “brave and cheerful and great”. The reporters interviewed a few children separately and I was forced to translate for questions like “how many family members did you lose in the tsunami”. That was strange, but the kids responded very well.
Then we left, jumped in the car, and were off to Lhoksumawe, the next town, three hours down the road. The road is beautiful. The mountains in the middle of Aceh are so beautiful, all green and high and wonderful. It is so lush after the brown desolation of the tsunami affected region. These are the areas known to be the worst for GAM/TNI violence, but besides the normal men with very large guns, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
We spent the night in Lhoksumawe, and the next day went to one of our Safe Play Areas, in one of the camps. This was a Kindergarten Safe Play Area, and we had a huge number of very small children playing around with their teachers. It was incredibly cute. The idea of safe play areas is to give kids whose lives have been drastically changed structured activities and a chance to play, away from their homes or tents in the camp. The kids seem to like it, and it gives the parents some time alone. And the reporters liked it, because they were able to get many pictures of happy children.
Then, finally, off to a temporary shelter area, where we were able to see the first of the temporary shelters that we put up for people who had lost their houses. These are small houses made out of wood and rattan matting. Three rooms, with electricity. We had built 12 such houses in this community, and they seemed to like it. Here, the photographer I was with wanted to take lots of posed pictures, and the people looked at us like me like I was nuts as I told them to come outside their house, with a water container and a cup, and pretend to pour. Or to run towards us. I can see why they thought we were odd.
And then, back to Banda Aceh on Tiny Weeny Airlines, Save the Children’s own personal (rented) plane. All in all, everyone was happy. Good trip.
