Wet
weather always makes Fahlevi shiver. He remembers how his family
were forced to share a tent with two other families –
a total of 14 people – after the December 2004 tsunami
swept through their village in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
“It was worse on rainy days like this, especially for
my young daughter, when floodwater would enter our tent, bringing
in rubbish and mud,” says Fahlevi a young father at 25.
“We were helpless. We had nothing and nowhere to go to.”
Today, 18 months after the disaster, Fahlevi and his wife Yessi,
together with their three-year-old daughter, Altarila Rahma,
live in a transitional shelter erected by the International
Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in the same area where their
family home was, in Meuraxa sub-district of Banda Aceh, the
capital of Aceh. The shelter has a sturdy steel frame and is
clad with wood.
In Aceh, tens of thousands of people lost their homes to the
tsunami. Fahlevi was among those who also lost parents and siblings.
He specially misses his older sister.
“The tragedy can never be repaired, but now, with this
simple shelter, we can begin to rebuild our lives.”
Fahlevi, who is a fourth-year engineering student and part-time
computer tutor, looks at their former two-storey brick house
nearby, which is now a shambolic pile of trash.
“This shelter is much better than a tent. We can organize
it like a real home, with space to sleep, eat and arrange some
basic furniture,” Fahlevi says.
Farther down the village, another young man, 23-year-old Akfal,
says he is happy with his shelter, which also stands in front
of his former concrete house. The tsunami also took the lives
of his parents, sister and brother.
“We are much safer here,” says Akfal, a third-year
engineering student who had to stop his schooling to support
his family.
“That’s OK. My schooling can wait. My priority is
my younger brother, the only one left with me now, who is in
high school. I want him to pursue his studies,” says Akfal
who works part-time and gets some financial support from relatives.
“I want a stable future for my brother and myself. I will
start building our future in this house.”
Fahlevi and Akfal are among the initial 125 displaced families
who received transitional shelters from the Indonesian Red Cross
with the support of the International Federation. Over the next
two months, 190 more shelters are to be built in the same area.
The shelters are a stop-gap between tents and the permanent
houses that will be built for the displaced families.
Working with 27 partners in Aceh and Nias, the Indonesian Red
Cross and the International Federation have funded almost 9,000
transitional shelters to date. About 6,000 are either completed
with timber or are in the process of being clad with wood. The
target is 20,000 shelters.
Along with transitional shelters, the Red Cross Red Crescent
Movement partners are set to build 21,882 permanent houses in
Aceh and Nias, of which some 2,400 are already complete or nearing
completion.
In Sigli city in Aceh, 30-year-old Marina is busy cleaning and
decorating her new, permanent two-bedroom home, built by the
French Red Cross, which she shares with her newly married brother.
“My mother would have loved to have planted a garden around
here and my sister could easily have made a fancy wall decoration
- if only they were alive,” says Marina, who clearly misses
them.
Other National Societies building permanent houses are the Australian,
Canadian, German, Japanese and Netherlands Red Cross Societies
and the Turkish Red Crescent Society.
Together, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
is helping create cohesive communities with projects such as
rehabilitating and rebuilding schools, hospitals, health clinics,
community centres and market places.
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Fahlevi
and his brother Sharil tell Indonesian Red Cross (PMI)
and International Federation staff that they are happy
and satisfied with the transitional shelter the Red Cross
has provided them with even if it is smaller than their
old four-bedroomed house. (p14145)
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Fahlevi
is thankful his family now has a place they can call home.
(p14146)
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Akfal
is determined to build a stable future for his only surviving
brother and himself in their new home provided by the
Red Cross. (p14147)
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Eight-year-old Wati, who lost her house along with her
parents, says she will take good care of the house she
received from the Red Cross. (p14148)
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The
Federation-led transitional shelter programme serves as
a stop-gap measure between tents and permanent houses
for tsunami-stricken families. (p14149)
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