Nias Online

Indonesia – After three years of rehabilitation work to provide access to health services, and clean water and sanitation to thousands of people in Aceh Jaya and Nias Island, Medair has now successfully completed its Indonesian programme. (more…)

* marked by an inauguration of new child-friendly school

Gunungsitoli, Nias, 15 May 2009, The inauguration of the newest and largest child-friendly school marked the fourth year of UNICEF support after Indonesia’s Nias earthquake.

The newly inaugurated school – SDN 075018 Afilaza – SDN 070976 Kota – is situated at the heart of the capital town of Gunungsitoli in Nias District, North Sumatra. According to UNICEF Nias, the school is expected that the school will provide the surrounding community with better access to basic education.

“UNICEF’s support has given children here better access to basic education using earthquake-resistant and child-friendly standards like the one we see today,” Deputy District Head, Temazaro Harefa, said. Other programmes such as quality education, child protection, health and nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, “will bring them a better, brighter future,” he added.

Capable of seating 500 students, the new building replaces two schools devastated by the massive earthquake. The two-storey compound has 16 well-lit and well-ventilated classrooms. Its 30 teachers were all from the original schools. Built in cooperation with Nippon Koei, it is quake resistant and also has separate toilets for boys and girls, a library and a large courtyard.

“This school now needs to be filled with life, with knowledgeable teachers and motivated students,” Angela Kearney, UNICEF Indonesia Representative in her opening speech. Together, we can ensure students have a safe and proper learning space. All our work here is part of our commitment to build back better.”

For the past 4 years of UNICEF’s support in Nias, the agency is focusing on Strengthening Basic Education System (Access to and quality Education, Early Childhood Development), Strengthening Health Care System (including nutrition and water-sanitation), and Strengthening Child Protection Referral System.

So far UNICEF has completed the construction of 46 schools with constructions of the remaining 79 now at full steam. More than 35,000 children have benefited from Creating Learning Communities for Children education programs.

Over half of the population had benefited from a better health care system with expanded immunization service, programmes to control malaria, improve early childhood development, nutrition, maternal and newborn-child health. Over 50,000 people, including children, have benefited from water, sanitation and hygiene facilities and learned how to live a clean and healthy life through hand washing with soap. The district has also issued a decree to strengthen a child protection referral system in Nias. (fr/ld/brk/*)

Jakarta (ANTARA News) – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has asked that unfinished jobs left behind by the Nias-Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) should be continued.

In his address during a function on the disbandment of BRR here on Friday, the president said that the good management should also be continued in resuming the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Aceh and Nias after the tsunami disaster hit the regions in December 2004.

“I don`t want the quality of the reconstruction and rehabilitation to change, including the principles of good governance,” Yudhoyono said.

With the issuance of Presidential Decree No. 3/ 2009, the term of office of the BRR on Aceh and Nias is completed after it carried out reconstruction and rehabilitation for about four years in the two regions.

After the BRR was dissolved, its tasks would be continued by a body called the Agency for the Resumption of the Aceh and Nias Reconstruction.

The governor of Nanggroe Aceh Daurssalam will lead the agency to do the work in Aceh while the governor of North Sumatra would lead the rehabilitation project in Nias island, which is part of North Sumatra.

President Yudhoyono asked Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf and North Sumatra Governor Syamsul Arifin to continue the work and do unfinished jobs left by the BRR.

“I hope that with the same spirit the governors would continue and manage the work which would be carried out by the new agency,” he said.

BRR Head Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said BRR had allocated Rp3.3 trillion for the rehabilitation projects in 2009 which would be carried out by the rehabilitation resumption agency.

“Actually, the agency will carry out the leftover projects with its own budget. So, the Rp3.3 trillion is a reconstruction fund from BRR which would be continued by the new agency under the central and regional governments,” Mangkusubroto said.

He said that during its four-year term, BRR had completed 93 percent of the commitment provided by donors worth US$72 billion.

“I think BRR has made a world record as in other places the commitment could be finished at an average of 40 percent,” he added. (www.antara.co.id – 17 April 2009)

Banda Aceh. A number of homes still remain unfinished, but at 10 a.m. on Thursday, the nameplate of the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency, or BRR, was taken down from its office in Lueng Bata, as scheduled. (more…)

State-run Gunungsitoli Hospital on Nias Island in North Sumatra Province, which was heavily damaged in a 2005 earthquake, reopened on Thursday after a major reconstruction project. (more…)