UN to employ 30,000 survivors

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."