Providing Shelter to Earthquake Survivors

by Adhong Ramadhan and Achmad Judi Wirjawan

BENGKULU, Indonesia, September 19, 2007 — Pa Ni' Manhar, 55 years old, is lying down under a tent filled with tarpaulins. Catholic Relief Services is distributing the tarps as part of a post-earthquake effort to provide people in the area with some semblance of shelter. The weather is hot and humid, not unusual here.

"Apa kabar pak? How are you, sir?" asks Judi politely, taking a seat in front of Ni' Manhar.

He replies, "This is reminding me [of] the earthquake in 2000, but this time I have to restart my life from scratch again as 20 years ago when I [set] … foot in this land after [joining] the transmigration program from Indonesia government in 1986."

Ni' Manhar is one of the earthquake survivors living in Saman Jaya village in Bengkulu province on the island of Sumatra. Many people in this village are migrants from Java island. Through the Indonesian government's transmigration program, families from overpopulated islands, such as Java, are relocated to less populated islands, including Sumatra.

Ni' Manhar continues, "A week ago, my life [was] above [average], [compared to] my family['s] life in Java. I [had] everything: television, refrigerators, radio, tape player and my house is permanent! Now I have to start from [the] beginning."

Poverty is the main reason Ni' Manhar and other Javanese originally joined the government's transmigration program. The Indonesian government gave each family a little more than 3 acres of land, some cash, and basic food supplies, such as rice, sugar, salt and dried fish for one year.

After 10 years, Ni' Manhar was already getting a return from his hard work on his own rubber plants. Every couple of days, he would earn about $20 from tapping the trees and selling to the middleman who collected rubber in his village. In the meantime, his wife Ibu Marni was selling fruits from a small kiosk in the village. They were making more than enough, they say, to support themselves and their five children.

Judi asks Ni' Manhar what he is planning for the future. "I will restart my life. I am not waiting [for] anyone['s] donation or kindness, especially from [the] government. … But thanks to [the] tent that CRS provided for my family, my youngest daughter [is] now protected from wind and rain."

CRS distributed 1,000 tents to the survivors within 24 hours of the first shock and plans to distribute an additional 2,500 tents.

Adhong Ramadhan is CRS Indonesia's emergency response program coordinator, working out of the Yogyakarta office. Adhong has also worked for CRS as office director for Jakarta, and head of programming for tsunami response in Banda Aceh. Achmad Judi Wirjawan is CRS' emergency and logistics officer, also based in Yogyakarta. Judi has expertise in food security, especially as it relates to emergencies.