Nias Online

Nias, North Sumatra – Five years after the magnitude-8.8 earthquake that devastated the North Sumatra island of Nias, the central government and Multi Donor Fund of the World Bank launched Friday their last three projects on rehabilitation and reconstruction program in the area.

The projects, worth US$24 million, comprise Nias Islands Transition Project, Nias Islands Rural Access and Capacity Building Program (RACBP) and Nias Livelihood and Economic Development Program (LEDP).

Backed by the UN Development Program and Home Affairs Ministry, the transition project aims to prepare the local government and people to take over and maintain the assets, which were built by the Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR).

The BRR operation ended in April last year.

The MDF will end its program in 2012.

The RACBP is dedicated to build basic infrastructure, including village roads and bridges, as well as train local people to maintain it. The project is jointly executed by the International Labor Organization and the Ministry of Disadvantaged Regions.  

The last project aims to boost economic activities of the local people, focusing on cocoa and rubber plantations, rice and vegetable production as well as livestock. The World Bank is assisting the Ministry of Disadvantaged Regions to implement the LEDP.

“It is time for Nias government, people and NGOs to build the region by themselves. The central government will continue supervising the construction and training local people to maintain their assets,” director of local government and special autonomy at the Home Affairs Ministry, Soni Sumarsono, said during the project launch at Nias regent office in Gunungsitoli.

Nias regional secretary R.E. Nainggolan said that the regency administration would fully support the final projects.

MDF has a total 14 rehab and construction projects worth $115 million in Nias since 2005. (The Jakarta Post, 30 July 2010)

Pulau Nias was hit by both Asian Tsunami and Sumatra earthquake in 2004 and 2005 respectively. As part of our official mission trip to Pulau Nias, we had a chance to talk to the locals as they shared their experience on coping with the aftermath of both disasters. (more…)

THE modest grey bricked building looks a world away from its counterpart across road, where shiny blue glass panes are framed by freshly scrubbed walls. (more…)

*A Red Cross water and sanitation programme on Nias Island is making a dramatic difference to the daily lives of local.

By Ahmad Husein, Communications Coordinator, IFRC Jakarta, Indonesia

Sabaria Lasse, 49, always looks enthusiastic every time people asking about her new latrine. It is a half brick and wood construction situated behind her house in Hilizokhu village in the northern district of Lahewa, on Nias Island.

“I copied the design of the latrines that the Red Cross built and I made it with my own money,” she says proudly.

Before having the latrine, Sabaria and others in the village just dug a hole in the back yard or used the riverbank as their local toilet. With a poor understanding of good hygiene practises it wasn’t surprising that the incidence of diseases such as diarrhoea was high among the villagers. (more…)

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…)

Today, Nur Iman Gulo has a small shop and lots of customers, thanks to help from Church World Service. The simple building that serves as the shop and the home for her family of seven — including four kids and her mother-in-law — is located in Tegideu village, Sirombu, Nias Island, reports Lesvi Roselim, Church World Service-Indonesia. When an earthquake hit on March 28, 2005, their home was destroyed. (more…)

Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Eight out of every 10 people in Nias, North Sumatra, are unsatisfied with the rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the tsunami-ravaged region, according to a survey.

The Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) found that only 21 percent of 419 Nias respondents saw improvement in the construction of main roads, while only nine percent said their water and sanitation was better since the reconstruction projects started last year. (more…)

By Sebastien Berger, South East Asia Correspondent

The British Government has the worst record for honouring pledges to help to rebuild the area worst affected by the Boxing Day tsunami, it emerged yesterday.

As the second anniversary of the disaster approaches, the Government has only given a fifth of the money it pledged to the biggest international consortium working in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Entire villages along hundreds of miles of Aceh’s coast were swept away by waves caused by an underwater earthquake and 168,000 people were killed. (more…)

Thang D. Nguyen

22 December 2006

Two years after one of the world’s worst natural disasters, Indonesia has made some unlikely gains but corruption and red tape still leave their scars .

Sometimes a tragedy is the very thing that triggers progress. This is true in the case of Indonesia, one of the most-affected countries by the Asian tsunami that happened on Boxing Day two years ago. (more…)

Brussels, 20 December 2006 – Two years after the tsunami hit South East Asia, the European Union (EU) and the international community have successfully made the transition from providing immediate humanitarian aid to reconstruction aid: helping local authorities and communities re-establish their lives within a longer term vision – re-building homes, livelihoods and infrastructure 100% of the €123 million humanitarian aid and 96% of the €350 million in medium and long-term reconstruction pledged by the European Commission has been contracted. The first concrete results are now being seen. Full story …