CRS in Indonesia

Indonesia is prone to disasters of all kinds, from climatic (floods, drought, erratic rainfall) to geologic (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc.), biological (avian influenza) to man-made (deforestation, mining, conflicts). 

Over the past five years, more than 1.5 million people throughout Indonesia have been directly affected by natural disasters. 

Following the tsunami of 2004, the government of Indonesia has become more aware of the risks and has taken steps to build the capacity of its staff in disaster risk reduction. 

Emergency preparedness and response has also become a priority for the Indonesian Church, specifically the national Caritas office—KARINA—and a growing number of dioceses. Dioceses where disasters have occurred in the last five years have increased their response and management capacities.

CRS' History in Indonesia

CRS has been operating in Indonesia since 1957. We help local communities alleviate human suffering, eradicate poverty and become self-reliant. We work in collaboration with local partners—both church-affiliated and secular. CRS is operating in Indonesia under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Social Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia that provides CRS with access to the target areas and communities.

CRS Indonesia has responded to natural and man-made disasters for most of its years of operation. Major recent responses include the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake, the 2007 earthquakes in West Sumatera and Bengkulu and the September 2009 earthquakes in West Java and West Sumatera, the 2012-2013 typhoon emergency response in Thousand Island, North Jakarta, the 2013 Lombok earthquake and the 2014 – 2015 Sinabung volcano eruption. As emergency response has been the main focus of CRS Indonesia programming, CRS Indonesia also continues to support communities affected by disasters. From October 2014 – March 2015, CRS, in collaboration with a local NGO partner in North Sumatera province, launched a post-disaster early recovery project to help communities in five villages affected by the eruption of Mt. Sinabung volcano in Karo District, North Sumatera.

In collaboration with Caritas Indonesia (KARINA), CRS Indonesia has implemented Emergency Response Institutional Capacity Building Accompaniment (ERICA) project to help strengthen the capacity of the six Diocesan Caritas (including all commissions and units under the diocese) in emergency response programming. Following up the successful implementation of the Sustainable Agriculture For Enhanced Resilience (SAFER) project, CRS and partner in Belu District, West Timor, continue to help the community in the dry areas of the district strengthen their resilience to cope with and adapt to the climate change that has affected their agricultural livelihood. We do this through the implementation of Preparedness And Resilience (PAR) – TaMPIk (resilient against climate change) program.