ACEH REHABILITATION AND RECONSTRUCTION UP DATE # 1/IV/2007 ------------------------------
OUTREACH FROM BARRACKS TO PERMANENT SHELTER Source: Tempo English Edition Magazine No. 33/VII/Apr 17 - 23, 2007 MUHAMMAD Ali looked on from afar as workers dismantled the barracks where he and hundreds of other tsunami refugees had been living for the past two years in the Banda Raya subdistrict of Banda Aceh. Present that Wednesday afternoon on April 4 to watch the dismantling work was subdistrict chief Iskandar. A total of 11 families occupying Barrack 22, including Muhammad's, would be relocated to another block of barracks left vacant by their occupants who had since returned to their rebuilt villages. Muhammad was allocated a room in Barrack VIII for occupation. Muhammad didn't mind being regrouped and relocated to another block and supported the dismantling of the barracks he was leaving. "It's better to have the barracks dismantled than letting them stay as they were to be occupied by unauthorized persons," he said. Before the tsunami, Muhammad lived in a rented house at Lorong V in the village of Punge Jurong in the subdistrict of Baiturrahman with his wife and three children. The tsunami which devastated the village killed both his wife and his three children. Later he remarried with a girl from the subdistrict of Kembang Tanjung in Pidie, who gave him three children, the same number he lost in the tsunami. A pedicab driver, Muhammad said he was promised one of the houses now being built by Budha Tsu Chi in Desa Neuheun, Masjid Raya subdistrict, Greater Aceh. "I'm ready to be relocated anywhere they want me to," said Muhammad who was born in Desa Gampong Lada, Mutiara Timur subdistrict in Pidie. "What's important is that we don't cause trouble to the people who are building the houses for us," he said. Of 2,618 refugee barracks in 190 locations in Aceh, 505 have been dismantled through February this year. Further work on the dismantling of the remaining barracks would be completed in stages. According the Aceh Rehabilitation & Reconstruction Agency (BRR), some 14,317 families still live in barracks, most of them landless families who lived in rented houses at the time of the tsunami. The rest were landed families whose property was washed out to the sea by the tsunami and would therefore be provided land and shelter at another location. BRR Chairman Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said his agency had set up temporary housing committees in 298 locations to speed up the process of relocation. Members of the committees, 1,788 of them, were given incentives for their jobs. The committees helped not only with the dismantling of barracks and relocation of the refugees, but also with organizing skill training programs and setting up cooperatives and micro-financing bodies to channel start-up capital to business-minded refugees. Already the committees have provided 500 women who lost their husbands with Rp2 million each in financial assistance to meet their daily living requirements and start small businesses of their own. At the same time 10,000 orphaned children have also received Rp800,000 each in living allowance in the first phase and Rp500,000 in the second phase of the program. Kuntoro said BRR had also began building Type 21 houses for landless refugees and Type 36 for landed refugees on 52 hectares of land in Labuy, Greater Aceh. Some of the refugees would be provided shelter in houses being built by China Charity Federation and Budha Tzu Chi in Desa Neuheun which is located adjacent to Labuy. A total of 606 Type 45 houses were being built by China Charity in Desa Neuheun on a hilly area overlooking the sea. According to Ai Zhongjia, manager of the contractor company Sinohydro Corporation Ltd, the 32-hectare housing complex is being built complete with such facilities as a market, kindergarten and primary school, mini-mosque, clinic, a soccer field and a public cemetery. Zhongjia said construction work was expected to be completed in July. The houses would be delivered to the Greater Aceh district government for distribution to the refugees. "It's the local government which will determine who among the refugees are entitled to the houses," he said. Meanwhile, many refugees have reportedly refused to move out to a housing complex being built Budha Tzu Chi in the same area, citing remoteness of the location from their workplaces. Banda Aceh Mayor Mawardi Nurdin called on the refugees who still remained in barracks to temporality occupy the houses. "I hope they (the refugees) would move out while the houses for them are being built," said Mawardi. "The barracks are no longer fit for occupation with little supplies of clean water available in the area." Mawardi also called on refugees still in barracks to move out to houses already built by BRR and donor organizations in Pante Riek in Lueang Bata and Desa Neuheun in the district of Baitussalam. "Please occupy the houses first and if you find them uncomfortable to live in, then the government would think of a way out for you," Nurdin appealed. But not the houses built by China Charity on the hills of Neuheun. There is little likelihood that many would refuse to relocate to the area overlooking a beautiful panorama of the blue sea. Besides, who would want to stay much longer in a crowded, unhealthy barrack? Yuswardi Ali Suud (Banda Aceh)
