IN THE RING OF FIRE
IN THE RING OF FIRE
By: Mardiyah Chamim (journalist, volunteer)
In the ring of fire. That is precisely situation which we, 220 million Indonesian, live in. Every single day we face various potential disasters. Some were purely coming from nature rhythms, many more were triggered by our own ignorant. Tsunami that swept Aceh and Nias, powerful quake in Yogya-Klaten, hot gasses cloud in Merapi, landslide in Banjarnegara, Jember flood, Sinjai flood, are only few examples among long list that we have.
Unfortunately, in the ring of fire has never been an important subject for us. We easily forget what happen in ground zero. Lessons that we should pick up disappeared in the air and another disaster struck before we were ready to get up. Again and again, we all get panicked for not knowing what to do in many critical moments.
It’s true that our people score amazing response when aid appeal calling. But, long list of disaster that happened consecutively in this beloved country required us to do much more than just organizing charity. We have to go to deeper. It is about the time –if not too late—to talk about how-to-live-in-the-line-of-fire very seriously.
Proper and quick respond procedure that we should do after calamity is the most important thing we have to talk about. Aceh-Nias quake and tsunami certainly taught us many lessons. How stubborn and stupid we are if all those lessons, which paid by thousands lives, do not make us any better to deal with disaster. Regarding this matter, as a journalist and volunteer myself, I have several important notes while doing voluntary job in Aceh, Nias and Yogya-Klaten.
Here are my two cents.
Information
Who can deny the crucial value of information? Tsunami is the best example. Aceh completely blocked for more than three days after 26 December 2004. All of communication infrastructures had been tearing apart. The whole world did not have any idea of how massive destruction scale that happened. Government first came up with 3,000 numbers of victims while it actually reached 170,000 lives.
Thanks to several young guys from Air Putih Foundation, Jakarta. They went to Aceh brought 350 kilos of IT equipment to set up wireless internet connection at the center of ground zero, in Banda Aceh. Two guys carried all those heavy equipment while most people only care about food and basic needs stuff. Finally, wireless connection has been set up on 30 December, 2004, in hot zone of tsunami. Aceh-Nias exposed to the world ever since.
Wireless connection also plays important role in the information stream in affected areas of Yogya-Klaten quake. Tough and hard landscape of Gunung Kidul, Bantul and Klaten could be reached through wireless connection.
Therefore, it is absolutely important for government to have mobile unit of wireless connection equipment along with satellite facility. The mobile units are ready to go or fly (by Hercules if necessary) to reach disaster area as soon as possible. It might look like ambulance of information emergency.
Database
Vice President Jusuf Kalla might be the one who learnt the important of accurate database. First he calculated that recovery program in Yogya-Klaten would only cost not more than Rp 1 trillion. A week later it became obvious that Jusuf Kalla’s previous prediction was not based on proper data. Recovery cost, as predicted later, exploded more than ten times of previous number. What a clumsy prediction.
Not only disturbing emergency and recovery program, inaccurate data would potentially jeopardized trust between people and government.
I recalled the first weeks after tsunami. Some institutions, NGOs such as WALHI and YAPPIKA, and student association (MAPALA) of University Indonesia, focused on database collection. Few guys going around with motorcycles and visiting survivor tent (called Posko). Every time they stopped, they noted the location with GPS (global positioning system) so there would be no redundant data. Then they made quick assessment, how many people live in tents, how many men, women and children, how was water and well condition, how many times they accepted logistic drop, etc.
Those collected data being pull together in www.acehmediacenter.or.id, a website that functioned as clearing house. Public, donors, government and all organization could access the data due to arrange proper and well targeted program. I am not saying that Aceh experiences are the best. But, this model can be applied with improvement in many ways.
Logistic Distribution
Yogya-Klaten is in the heart of Java Island,from Jakarta. First we thought that there would be no problem of logistic distribution in this area. There is no reason for that. No bridge broken, no street shattered in pieces, just like Aceh and Nias.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing the same problem. There were many locations that still can not be reached until the second week after quake. Bureaucracy is one thing that we could blame for this problem. Logistic stuff have to travel a long way before reach people who need it. Kepala desa (village chief) has to report to district officer, in kecamatan and kabupaten, before get logistic. Considering difficult landscapes of Bantul, Gunung Kidul and Klaten, this tight bureaucracy only make things get worse.
Learning from this situation, we need to improvise the system. Government has to embrace civil society for doing logistic distribution during relief stage. We can not let government all alone doing this. We need to identify NGOs and other institutions that have reputable records in the area of relief. Jaringan Relawan Kemanusiaan (JRK), Nurani Dunia, Dompet Dhuafa, for example, are several responsive institutions in relief action and I am sure there are many others institutions that have good reputation.
Surely this approach will require a lot of work, especially in term of coordination and accountability. Sound too hard to do? Well, Rome was not built in a day.
People Based Approach
One of magnificent movement that we should appreciate is the strength of voluntarism among civil society. Rescuers and medical corps volunteers, for example, pouring soon from all over the world right after disaster happen. We just need to maintain this voluntarism spirit keep growing.
Along with that effort, we need to cultivate another approach of voluntarism which I called people based approach. Not only give something to local community, volunteer also responsible to keep local capacity grows with their own dignity. This is actually a reasonable approach since volunteer won’t stay forever in the affected areas.
How to build posko is a good example to discuss. Usually we tend to build Posko with our own flag with huge capital letters surrounded all areas. Thousand of flags being showed off in Yogya-Klaten. Red, yellow, blue, green, you name it, all kind of color flag we can find here.
We forget that local people are the real owner of Posko. With people based approach, we do not build Posko just to show off our own flag. This approach required us to mingle with survivors, listen to their needs, be friends with them, encouraged them to build their own Posko, hand in hand with them to manage the Posko. Instead of “Posko Dermawan Company, Jakarta, bla..bla…”, its much more beautiful to build “Posko Desa Pleret Bangkit” along with local people.
This approach would not create dependency. In fact, it will strengthen local cohesiveness which is needed when survivors march to the road of recovery.
Be Strategic
Last but not least, I have to remind all of us how important to act strategic in crisis situation. Please, please, be wise and try not to create new disaster with unnecessary comment or premature action. Take a look at JK’s action while promising recovery scheme, each broken house will replaced by cash Rp 10-30 million, while the big picture of what really happened still blurred. Only few days after this announcement, government got confused almost about everything. How to decide grade of house destruction, how many houses exactly that need to rebuilt (how do we know exactly when database are so inaccurate?), where is the money sources, how is the scheme, etc, etc.
Not only giving wrong message but JK action also create new and maybe even more dangerous “earthquake” to the areas that suffered already.
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