Mennonite Central Committee

MCC provides funds for transport and volunteers in Indonesia

December 31, 2004

As the extent of devastation continues to unfold in Sumatra, Indonesia, MCC Indonesia co-representatives Jeanne and Dan Jantzi find an outpouring of support, concern and efforts to help. MCC is currently providing funding for trucks to transport locally donated material aid and volunteers to the devastated Aceh province.

“The images on the news are overwhelming for Indonesians — people who look like them, dead children. Newspapers, TV, and radio stations are taking up collections. There are collection boxes in restaurants and public places. People with collection boxes are at stoplights. Appeals are even coming on our cell phone text messages with the option of cashing in our prepaid minutes for tsunami relief,” the Jantzis write. “Banners are on community centers identifying the place as a collection post for material donations. Now the challenge will be to transport the donations and to make good use of the donated funds.”

MCC contributed $3,307 Cdn./$2,778 U.S. toward renting trucks to transport 14 tons of material aid, including drinking water, cooking pots and clothing. All of this material aid was donated by the people of Medan, the capital city of the province of North Sumatra. It is the nearest population center outside of the conflict area and unaffected by the tsunami. One truck is going from Medan to Banda Aceh, and the other truck will take material aid to Lhokseumawe, on the east coast of Aceh province.

MCC contributed $1,323 Cdn./$1,111 U.S. for transporting 15 Aceh student volunteers living in Jogjakarta to assist in the cleanup efforts in Aceh. They will leave on Monday. Each student will carry with them a full luggage allowance of material donations. This aid has been donated by the people of Jogjakarta and has been piling up at the university dormitories of students from Aceh who are studying thousands of kilometers from home.

The Society for Health Education, Environment and Peace (SHEEP) is mobilizing and providing opportunities for students from Aceh who are studying in Jogjakarta to return to their home province to assist there. The students have the advantage over the many other eager Indonesian volunteer candidates because they know the local languages and Islamic sharia law and culture. More than 100 volunteers have signed up and are ready to go. However, one limiting factor is that each volunteer also requires food, clean water, sanitation facilities and shelter. Too many volunteers could actually increase the burden on local supplies as they would need to compete with local people for these very scarce commodities.

In addition, an MCC staff member, Pak Abang, is traveling with Community Development (CD) Bethesda to the Aceh province as part of a medical response and assessment team.

The Jantzis are meeting with other nongovernmental organizations in Jakarta Friday to plan a response for Nias, Banda Aceh, and Lhokseumawe.

According to the Jantzis, the 75 volunteers currently in Aceh with the SHEEP consortium have reported that they cannot work more than two days at a time because of the enormous emotional toll of the work with victims. The bodies have been in the sun so long that some of them fall apart as they are lifted.

Nias is reporting that there are still inaccessible parts of the island that have not been accounted for.