Child tsunami survivors hope for better future

Child tsunami survivors hope for better future

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

Tsunami survivor Muzakir still hopes for a better future one year after the tsunami killed his father and separated him from his mother and two siblings.

At the tender age of 13, the native of Aceh Besar regency in Aceh has learned to be independent, spending his days at school and working as a shoeshine boy.

The teenage, who lives in a shelter run by the Aceh Study and Children's Protection Center (PKPA), finds reality tiresome but is happy that he can stay in school yet still earn money, instead of being a burden to his mother, who lives in a shelter for displaced persons in Aceh Besar regency with his two younger siblings.

"I pity my mother. Since my father died a year ago, she has faced a lot of hardship. She is forced to work hard to meet the family's basic needs," Muzakir told The Jakarta Post after symbolically receiving aid from organizers of the "A Year into the Tsunami" charity concert in Medan on Sunday night.

The teenager was among 22 child survivors invited by the PKPA, the concert's organizing committee, to receive aid raised from the proceeds of the concert.

The committee also presented the late North Sumatra governor Rizal Nurdin, who died in a Mandala plane crash in Medan on Sept. 5 this year, a posthumous award for his earnest efforts in the mitigating disaster relief, especially for child survivors.

Another child survivor, Mahalayati, 15, expressed happiness at being invited to the concert and receiving education assistance. The senior high school student said she would use the assistance to finish her education.

While inaugurating Rumah Anak Madani rehabilitation center for Aceh tsunami and Nias earthquake victims in Deli Serdang regency in North Sumatra on Sunday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would continue to assist and pay attention to the plight of affected children so they could achieve their goals and grow up to be some of the nation's best sons and daughters.

He insisted that it was the government's duty to see that the children, who lost loved ones in the disasters, realize their dreams.

"It is the duty of all of us, lest they lose their future. Don't let them lose the chance to develop and become the nation's best sons and daughters. I invite everyone to see and step toward the future for the sake of the children," he said.