Volunteers are bomb victims' best friends

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

Australian-born Jane Lumy is busy coordinating a team of volunteers at Bali's Sanglah Hospital Crisis Center, trying to respond to any inquiries from families or relatives of the weekend blast victims.

Lumy has been coordinating at least 475 volunteers who are ready to assist in any way they can.

Her volunteers affectionately call her Bunda (or mother). Lumy oversees everything -- from logistics, data to the daily meals for her "children".

The team of volunteers was firstly established in 2002 when the first bombs detonated on the island. Comprising people of all nationalities, the team worked up a storm to collect information, ask for donations and directly help those in need.

"We just thought that we had to work to help the bomb victims; to make things possible again," Lumy said.

First paying for things out of their own pockets, some of the people they helped later praised them as miracle workers.

However, Lumy is quick to downplay what the volunteers have achieved.

"We just did what we could to ease the heavy burdens of our unfortunate brothers and sisters," she said.

When their work in the bomb aftermath ended, Lumy's group shifted their target, working to help under-privileged people on the island.

In Dec. 2005; the team reunited in Aceh, where thousands of people affected by the tsunami waited desperately for help.

"I was stationed in Banda Aceh, Tenom and Nias Island," Lumy said. She worked rehabilitating children and helped register the huge numbers of missing persons.

Working to help people required sincerity, compassion and empathy, she said.

"(This time in Bali) we have already registered hundreds of missing persons from many countries in the world. We have to make frequent cross-checking procedures with a number of hospitals in Denpasar and its surroundings to ensure our information is valid and reliable," a volunteer worker, Syaichu, said.

So how was the work?

"Oh ... it's been really, really difficult and sometimes burdensome because many relatives and friends have not provided proper information about those who they say are missing. To make it worse, they didn't want to give us any contact numbers."

There were initially 72 people listed as missing in the wake of the second Bali blasts, but the team has identified and found 30 of them.

"We found that some of the reported missing people were still alive and healthy and are still holidaying in places on the island. It was really relieving."

Lumy said she could only accept volunteers who were physically and mentally tough.

"This work has a lot of pressure. We have to be strong enough to endure it, otherwise we can't help people," Lumy said.