One of the largest Christian relief and development organisations in the world continues to provide food assistance to affected communities in Indonesia’s tsunami-battered regions, delivering food assistance to approximately 45,000 people per month.

Supported by the World Food Program (WFP), World Vision has continued to provide rice, fish, biscuits, noodles, and oil to the people of Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar, and on the island of Nias, in addition to non-food assistance.

According to World Vision, job loss has been high due to the 26 December tsunami that devastated South Asia last year, resulting in a high need for food aid. The international organisation reports that food is currently the item most demanded by internally displaced persons and although its response is presently shifting from the emergency phase to the rehabilitation phase, the need for food aid will continue to be high in the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, World Vision continues to operate a health clinic, which is visited by approximately 30 patients per day, and has distributed 8 ambulances to hospitals in Banda Aceh – where World Vision provides incentives for 160 workers at Fakinah hospital.

World Vision is working in cooperation with the PPNI (Indonesian National Nurse Association) in Banda Aceh, providing support through medical supplies for their clinics in IDPs camps. Additional support is being planned is to provide medical supplies to Muhammadiyah, one of the biggest Islamic charity organisations in Indonesia.

World Vision is also nearing completion of 25 Temporary Living Centers (TLCs) in Lhok Nga, Leupung, Lhoong and Lamno communities – each of which contain 20 rooms designed for families of five.

Meanwhile, World Vision is developing about 500 Semi-Permanent houses, which will be used as public buildings such as temporary schools, temporary clinics, and public offices.

As a continuation of its agreement with the Indonesian government, World Vision has also begun the construction and rehabilitation of 13 schools in Aceh and Nias, from the total of 34 schools that World Vision has committed to build.

Also continuing is World Vision’s Cash for Work program of cleaning and removing debris in Lhoong – which has also extended to Lamno, where 856 people have been employed from seven villages to do the land clearing, drainage work, and fencing. According to World Vision, the beneficiaries are paid by the organisation to help clear debris and salt-tainted agricultural land in preparation for sowing crops that will be harvested within months. The project, the first of many World Vision livelihood recovery programs in Aceh, will seek to recover 900 hectares of land, benefiting some 1,800 families. World Vision will provide 20 tons of rice and 44 tons of peanuts for the Cash for Work participants to plant.

Meanwhile, World Vision reports that its relief work in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and India continues to provide assistance in areas including distributions, shelter, infrastructure, schools and pre-schools, medical clinics, water and sanitation, child protection and development, and economic (livelihood) recovery.





Anthony La Fleur
Christian Today Correspondent