UN to employ 30,000 survivors
Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) plans to employ up to 30,000 tsunami survivors to clean up shattered buildings, debris and other waste materials in ravaged towns of Aceh as the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase begins.
UNDP representative Mieke Kooistra told a press conference on Friday that a tsunami waste management program was urgently needed as the tsunami disaster had left behind large volumes of waste and debris throughout affected areas that was a risk to public health and could itself slowdown the reconstruction of Aceh.
"The UNDP and the government will therefore join together in setting up waste management facilities throughout affected areas," she said. "A pilot project for Banda Aceh is expected to be up and running within a week."
"The pilot project will provide immediate employment for 100 tsunami survivors and will expand to employ 1,000 people in Banda Aceh and 30,000 in all affected regions and towns," she said, adding that workers will receive a daily wage, health and safety training, and appropriate clothing and vaccinations.
Kooistra said that the labor intensive program will also help by injecting money into local economies.
She explained that much of the waste, including huge slabs of steel and concrete, will be recycled for reconstruction efforts or used to fill eroded coastal areas. Vegetative waste materials will be used as compost to help regenerate farmland.
Other UN agencies working in the province of Aceh, which bore the brunt of the Asian tsunami, also said on Friday that they will now shift their approach from emergency relief to recovery and rehabilitation programs.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Program (WFP) will continue their activities in providing emergency assistance as the rehabilitation programs takes place.
"We will coordinate with the Indonesian government in realigning our line of work to help address a range of recovery options," UN public information officer for Aceh, Hiro Ueki, said at the joint press conference.
The International Organization For Migration (IOM) said it was setting up 11,000 semi-permanent shelters for people affected by the killer wave.
"The program will begin with the establishment of 1,000 such shelters," said IOM representative Simona Opitz. "We are expecting the first model shelter to arrive this Friday."
Meanwhile, UNHCR representative Astrid van Genderen Stort said that the agency has managed to set up its first camp for tsunami survivors in Meulaboh, after over a month of providing emergency assistance to them together with Swiss, French, American and German humanitarian agencies.
"The camp consists of 112 tents for some 560 people, and will be run by Indonesian authorities," she said.
Besides providing assistance to people taking refuge in camps, Van Genderen Stort also said that the UNHCR will prepare programs for those who have taken refuge in the homes of friends or relatives. She did not elaborate as the program was still in the process of being discussed.
With a 50-member staff and four offices in Banda Aceh, Lamno, Calang and Meulaboh, UNHCR has so far managed to deliver emergency assistance some 40,000 needy people along the Acehnese west coast.
World Food Program (WFP) representative Heather Hill said that the agency will now begin their second round of distribution of one-month supplies to 500,000 people displaced by the tsunami disaster.
"We now have 10 helicopters to transport the supplies to areas in Aceh's west coast that are still isolated," she said. "We have also prepared a 3,000-ton cargo ship off the coast of Meulaboh, complete with a shuttle landing craft, to act as a floating warehouse."