Volunteer group supports Acehnese to embrace future

Volunteer group supports Acehnese to embrace future

Alpha Amirrachman, Contributor, Jakarta

The first time the team from Al-Azhar Community Development in
Aceh (ACDA) surveyed the catastrophe in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam,
its members were deeply disturbed by the palpable feeling of
disorientation emanating from many of the survivors.

However, they were further surprised by the fact that many
children there were still able to demonstrate enthusiasm and
spirit, particularly when they came together in a group and
played.

As reconstruction progresses, many who lost their children and
families are now looking determinedly to the future, with some
experts predicting a baby-boom in the region.

This spirit is indeed invaluable capital for the Acehnese
people to rebuild their lives and bury their wounds.

It is because of this that ACDA -- a volunteer organization
founded by alumni of Al-Azhar Mosque's youth organization in
Jakarta -- has followed an approach of transformational
relations, which is designed to restore and nurture the intrinsic
capacity of a community to identify their own problems, to manage
their resources and to communicate solutions that would enable
them to comprehend their present and future lives realistically.

The ACDA program places civil capacity-building efforts ahead
of infrastructure establishment in disrupted areas by adopting a
transformational process called Community Driven Development
(CDD). Accordingly, the expected goal is for the affected
community to develop the confidence and ability necessary to
recognize problems, suggest solutions and plan their own future,
along with any logistics deployment, such as social and economic
infrastructure that have been proposed by working institutions in
their surroundings.

A cultural approach has also been adopted, and under this
approach, the ACDA uses mosques as its base, considering that the
staunchly Islamic province employs a certain degree of sharia in
their law.

Mosques are used not only as a center of worship, but also as
a center for cultural, social and economic development.

The ACDA accompanies and assists the community in responding
to government policy in rebuilding their devastated province. The
main tools used in this are focus group discussions and
participatory methodology, which motivates women and men from all
strata of life to raise development issues and evaluate the
impact on them, generate information based on their own personal
experiences and broach issues of concern that demand collective
efforts both through education and advocacy.

For the first-year program, from July 2005 through June 2006,
the ACDA is focusing on community service and community
relations, which is to be followed by a long-term community
empowerment program. The organization is focusing initially on
Nagan Raya district to develop a model for participatory
development.

This short-term program is being pursued through
reconstructing and activating local social and cultural
infrastructure, such as the physical restoration of meunasah --
small mosques -- mosques, and schools and libraries for children
and students; facilitating kindergarten and primary school
education through assistance in formal and informal education for
children in cooperation with local governments, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and awarding educational scholarships;
donating emergency aid; and organizing small groups of local
people to guarantee the sustainability of the programs.

Long-term programs focus on community empowerment, which is
aimed at nurturing societies that are well organized and possess
the capacity to systematically solve their problems. Activities
toward this end include conducting social and economic studies
that can be used to help refugees in entering the reconstruction
phase for Aceh as is outlined in the National Development
Planning Board's blueprint; providing technical assistance to
local residents to run small- and medium-scale businesses, such
as in drawing up proposals, business planning and business
organization; and in facilitating aid distribution offered by
other NGOs or individuals that particularly target economic and
educational rehabilitation.

In appreciation from the locals for this long-term project,
the ACDA has been granted a two-hectare plot of land, which will
be followed soon by another plot of six hectares for the purpose
of building schools.

Many challenges still remain, with survivors bearing the
psychological scars of the devastating disaster, as ACDA program
director Chaidir Amin said: "We often find that the children sob
at night, surely remembering how their beloved parents were
tragically swept away by the tsunami. And some of the adults
still find it hard to forget the cheerful faces of their dead
children. To tackle this problem, our volunteers try to build
deeper personal relationships with those affected individuals, by
becoming their close companions and persuading them to busy
themselves with positive activities."

Another pressing challenge is, he said, "how to convince the
Acehnese that, although they have been victimized by Jakarta for
too long, we non-Acehnese do embrace our brothers and sisters in
Aceh with sincere hearts."

The contributor is a lecturer at the Faculty of Education of
Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa State University, and volunteers as an
educational consultant for the ACDA.