Humanity First

Education & Training

HF Indonesia has an IT training centre in Sumatra offering low-cost training packages in Microsoft Office and Internet. Over 100 students have been enrolled. HF has also been providing facilities for 120 school children in the Assasunajaah Secondary, Ibtidaiyah Negeri and Tsanawiyah Swasta Schools in Aceh. Facilities provided include bunkbeds, classroom furniture, books, IT equipment, laboratory equipment and sports materials. Electric generators have also been provided to help the schools cope with power outages. Nominated students and teachers are also making use of the IT training facilities as well as medical administration staff from the region.

Water for Life

HF began by providing emergency water supplies tanked into various areas including the new hosuing complex in Neuheun village, and also emergency sanitation provision. Since then, HF has been establishing or refurbishing over 30 water hand pumps which are now providing clean and safe drinking water to around 19,000 villagers. Due to the local geography, wells are having to be dug to a depth of 125-150 metres to access safe water through the layers of clay. So far, wells have been established in a number of remote villages such as Labuy, Lam Asan, Lampineung and Meunasah Mon, and many other candidate villages are now being assessed.

Orphan Care

The Tsunami of 2004 left thousands of vulnerable children both orphaned and traumatised. HF began by counselling the children, many of whom were still desperately seeking surviving relatives. HF has since been looking after around 130 orphans in Aceh working in partnership with World Harvest. The programme has focussed on orphans living in the new housing complexes of Budha Tzu Chi and Neuheun village. HF has been providing a range of services including play groups, English language classes, computer classes and a small clinic.

Disaster Relief

Since the Tsunami of 2004, HF Indonesia has established a team, able to provide emergency response anywhere in the Indonesian archipelago within 24 hours. Since the Tsunami, the team has been deployed several times. In May 2006 after thousands were killed and displaced following the volcanic eruption of Mount Merapi near Jogjakarta and the subsequent earthquake, a team of over 100 HF volunteers ran several camps and soup kitchens for thousands of refugees providing 3 hot meals a day. Similarly, after the Tsunami that struck Pangandaran in July 2006 leaving hundreds of casualties and severe damage to the resort, HF set up a camp in Kertamukti to look after 800 people. Since then HF have provided several Bagan fishing rafts to help the fishermen recover their fleets and start fishing again.

Asian Tsunami – Dec 2004

On December 26th 2004, a massive Tsunami devastated much of Asia. The Epicentre was at the far tip of Indonesia near the province of Banda Aceh, and was triggered by an underwater earthquake registering 9.1 on the Richter scale. The deathtoll was over 220,000 with over 1.5 Million homeless of which more than 167,000 deaths and 500,000 homeless were in Indonesia.

Those that had survived were faced with dead bodies and debris all around them. With water everywhere but none of it drinkable, and food and bodies strewn everywhere, there was a real threat of water-borne diseases affecting the remaining population. Also, many of those who had survived had severe scarring and injuries, and were suffering shock and mental trauma.

The HF teams in Asia responded immediately in several countries to provide basic aid and treatment to the victims. Quickly, the impact was assessed. HF set up food distribution points and medical centres in India, Sri Lanka, and the Banda Aceh province of Indonesia, which had been the nearest and worst hit.

HF established a camp at Lamno, in Banda Aceh province where one of the first tasks was to establish safe drinking water and sanitation for the general public. HF had got access to electric water pumps. These were installed at the Lamno camp and immediately helped 3,000 people. A combination of medical treatment and the provision of safe water got these people out of danger.

In Europe and North America, over £1.5 Million was raised in a short time. The next task was to liaise with local teams and prioritise aid shipments. 16 large 40 foot containers were despatched to Asia with an assortment of urgent supplies, and again the effective distribution of the supplies was achieved by working in partnership with local agencies.

In Indonesia, HF was able to assist over 30,000 people over a 5 month period with over 15,000 man-days worked by our dedicated volunteers. The HF effort ensured that victims had safe water as quickly as possible, and had their injuries treated by medical experts in a timely way.

Since then, efforts have switched to the next Phase, long-term care of the orphans, providing help with skills training and education, and other tasks related to the long-term rehabilitation of these communities.