Tsunami Response: Building Back Better, Reflections on the Past 2 Years

View a 4 Minute Video: Devastation and JDC Response

Photo Slideshow: JDC Relief Efforts

Among locals in Indonesia, they simply call her "the miracle child". Found in ragged clothing wandering the streets of Aceh Besar two weeks after the tsunami devastated the region, this young girl was brought by a nurse to the Bakoy refugee camp, where JDC and its local partner, DwiYuna Jaya Foundation, had established their headquarters. Still today, no one knows how the miracle child survived — she does not speak about what happened to her or her family.

She and her adoptive mother — a woman who had lost two of her own four children in the deadly waves — lived in the JDC-sponsored refugee camp for 15 months and are doing well, having since moved on back to their village. This little girl is one of some 70 orphans cared for and placed with surrogate parents at the Bakoy camp, where JDC and DwiYuna Jaya provided mattresses and clean water, installed electricity, built playgrounds and made critical upgrades to both the camp's sanitation as well as to the quality of life of those for whom the camp became a temporary home.

The miracle child is but one "face" of the Southeast Asia tsunami that on December 26, 2004 eviscerated families and individuals, lives and livelihoods, and redefined the meaning of the term "natural disaster." In accordance with its mission, JDC acted immediately on behalf of the North American Jewish community to bring rescue and relief where hundreds of thousands of people were suffering immeasurably.

Two years later, JDC is still there. "A large part of how we ensure sustainable development is working through our local partners," explains Will Recant, JDC Assistance Executive Vice President. "And these partners have been exceptional, having proven themselves to be innovative and highly effective in implementing programs."

These dozens of programs — implemented in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and India — now in a phase of longer-term development, have primarily focused on the areas of education, reconstruction, and employment/livelihood rehabilitation.

In the arena of education, JDC has been working with it local partners to rebuild schools and provide supplies. A primary school in Ahangama village in the Galle District of Sri Lanka was constructed by JDC in partnership with the Rotary Club of Colombo on land donated by a Buddhist priest. At the opening earlier in December, the 700-plus student body wore new white shirts proudly displaying the logos of JDC and the Rotary. "It was a huge success," shares Michal, who is spending the year volunteering in Sri Lanka through the JDC Jewish Service Corps program. "The children seemed so very excited and are looking forward to start studying in their new school."

Healing seminars as well as summer camps in Thailand, conducted by JDC in partnership with the local organization Population and Community Development Association (PDA), utilized Israeli trauma experts to share know-how in coping and psychological recovery. This knowledge was also imparted through training sessions of local teachers and other individuals who work with children. And JDC's partnership with Caritas in India built a computer center — a much-needed educational resource — in the country's hard-hit southern region.

On the most literal level, JDC's reconstruction efforts have taken the form of temporary housing throughout the tsunami-affected regions, and later, permanent housing such as modern model villages in Indonesia currently being replicated by the Indonesian government and other organizations. In Sri Lanka, multi-purpose community centers being built by JDC and Sarvodaya are giving families places to gather together and be enriched both by activities and by interaction with their neighbors. JDC's flagship project in Sri Lanka — a partnership with USAID with funding from the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund and in collaboration with local implementing partner, Sarvodaya — is the construction of 85 playgrounds throughout the country as havens for children and a gathering place for parents. As ten-year-old Sathi said as she went whizzing down the slide at the first playground site, "Please tell the people in America a big thank you — now we can play!"

In Thailand, JDC and PDA projects have brought potable water to villages that lost their fresh water systems or never had one. As one Ban Taling Chan villager explained, "We face very serious water problems during the dry season, which lasts about 5-6 months. In the past, we had to pay a large amount of money to purchase water from our district. Thanks to your project, the villagers have been very happy and proud to have clean water for every household throughout the year. And this piped water system allows our community to learn and manage it ourselves, which has great benefits for us."

Furnishing communities with the resources that they require to sustain themselves, without a dependency on others, has been a primary operating principle of JDC since its earliest days. This philosophy is well articulated in the employment and livelihood rehabilitation projects introduced by JDC and its local partner agencies in each of the affected countries.

In India, JDC and its local partner, Disaster Mitigation Institute (DMI), trained hundreds of women to make coir, candles, leather and other marketable goods to help them replace the livelihoods that their husbands used to earn as fishermen. "I get such happiness in doing this work that I never used to get when I sold fish," offered Rajambal, a 71-year-old native of the Tamil Nadu district of India. Through the local village women's group, Rajambal is able to sell her wares and earn an important income to support herself.

"Whether we are rehabilitating Thai villages by giving fishing boats where they were destroyed, helping new banks open up, offering training sessions in a particular area, working with local groups to develop women's cooperatives or helping to bring tourism back to Sri Lanka, we are always looking to ensure that these programs and their impact will be sustainable by the local community down the road," explains Will Recant.

JDC's work with model villages in Indonesia exemplifies this principle. "Our local partner, DwiYuna Jaya Foundation, said that trained people cannot be found in Banda Aceh to build quality housing and that electricians, masons and other construction workers would need to be brought in from Jakarta," Recant relates. "So a big part of the program is now having these workers from Jakarta train locals so that in the future they can build new construction as well as sustain that which is presently being built."

While JDC has been building sustainable housing and community centers, businesses and clean water systems, an equally valuable and unanticipated outcome of its tsunami relief efforts has emerged: the building of cultural bridges. "Here we are, a Jewish organization, and there are no local Jewish communities in these countries (except India), and the cooperation with other inter-faith groups has been exemplary," observes Recant. "It is the first time we've worked with a Buddhist group in such a large way; we've worked in Hindu communities in Southern India and with Muslims in Indonesia and southern Thailand." JDC has run seminars for all of these groups and brought them together to create a viable future for themselves, with no ethnic animosity or negativity towards Jews. "So just by doing the work, you are building bridges between all of these faith-based groups that were never exposed to each other before."

This has proven true on a personal level, as well. Soon after the deadly waves struck, Fatima, a Muslim woman, befriended Erna and Justina, who are Christians, at the Bakoy refugee camp in Indonesia. All three women were widowed by the tsunami. Together, the women applied to the JDC and DwiYuna Jaya Foundation partnership for a small business grant. They were awarded $300 to establish a small snack bar and coffee shop — one of over 300 such grants given by the partnership.

"Donations for natural disasters can be spent by organizations in many different ways," says Steve Schwager, JDC Executive Vice President. "JDC not only uses these funds to provide emergency food and shelter, but more importantly to expand the capacity of devastated local communities to take care of their own citizens. In regions where there are no Jews and no precedent of cooperation among different ethnic groups, JDC is bringing them together. Amidst all of the suffering, so many lives will be better off because the North American Jewish community empowered us to help and we have partnered to do so. And we will stay until the job is done."

December 2006