MAKING A DIFFERENCE THROUGH OUR PARTNERS
In Aceh, Indonesia, the Asian Tsunami reconstruction effort continues to this day and Operation USA continues to provide essential support to local groups such as Yayasan Lamjabat, a local NGO providing social services to thousands of tsunami victims, and our partner in Aceh, Indonesia for the last two and a half years.
Our maiden project with Yayasan Lamjabat oversaw the construction of twelve pastel-colored playgrounds that now dot the newly rebuilt coastal neighborhoods of Banda Aceh, together with an after-school recreation center where children were provided with a safe and secure environment for play while their neighborhoods and homes were being rebuilt.
With no less than twenty-five percent of Aceh’s population losing their livelihood as a result of the Asian Tsunami, OpUSA partnered with Yayasan Lamjabat on livelihood projects that assisted tsunami survivors in re-establishing a source of income through vocational training. In April 2006, Yayasan Lamjabat established a vocational training center providing sewing classes, English, and computer literacy classes for girls and young adults. Six months later, the training center was relocated to a new location which allowed additional communities access to vocational training classes. A new component, however, was integrated into the classes – environment and conservation.
Host to ten percent of the world’s flowering plant species, twelve percent of the world’s mammals and seventeen percent of the world’s bird species, a part of Indonesia’s abundant biodiversity came under serious threat in the aftermath of the Tsunami. Aceh faced the overwhelming challenge of balancing large-scale reconstruction with conservation of the province’s rich biodiversity. Recognizing the importance of this environmental challenge, Yayasan Lamjabat was one of the few Acehnese NGOs deeply concerned with the negative impact 30 years of civil conflict further compounded by the Asian Tsunami has had on Aceh’s environment. Operation USA supported the establishment of the first environmental education center which aims to inform and encourage young people and the wider community to look after and assist in improving and conserving their natural heritage. In addition to the vocational training, new classes have been scheduled where farmers, for example, learn about new farming techniques that are environmentally sustainable, including organic composting, using livestock waste, and recycling.
The older women attend training workshops in different handicrafts techniques that allow them to recycle items of waste combined with what is freely available on the forest floor - such as leaves, seed pods, etc. The women have participated in environmentally focused training sessions that vary from sewing and weaving to construction of artificial flowers. Through these workshops, the women are also provided with a rare opportunity to explore and develop their creative potential to create non-traditional handicrafts for sale. Yayasan Lamjabat training encourages them to think of ways to recycle materials to create something new that others will find beautiful and/or useful.
The younger children have not been left out. Preschoolers participate in nature trails, while the young boys from the village learn Acehnese traditional dance after school. One young boy stands out in particular. Born in a village that had been cut off from the rest of Banda Aceh during the civil war, he had no access to schooling and is consequently illiterate. School is no longer an option for him as he is too old. Despite this, he is well versed in the lyrics of the traditional songs that were passed down from generation to generation; whenever the boys practice at the Yayasan Lamjabat training center, he chants the verses through a loudspeaker in time to the drum beats while the dance troupe practices. Before he leaves the training center at the end of the day, Yayasan Lamjabat staff give him a new word to learn and write. This little “a word a day” routine is slowly building his confidence and strengthens his resolve to learn how to read and write like his friends in the dance troupe.
Our final collaboration with Yayasan Lamjabat aims to bring full circle the vocational training projects OpUSA has supported over the last year and a half. Over the next six months, Yayasan Lamjabat will provide small business training to the women who are making handicrafts and assist them in developing marketing and financial skills that will allow them to bring their products to market. In addition, OpUSA is supporting Yayasan Lamjabat to provide a shop-space for them to sell their goods in the center of Banda Aceh.
09/2007 |
