October 5th - Back to home base

I have spent last weekend and the beginning of this week in Meulaboh. I have travelled around a lot on Monday and Tuesday, visiting all nine Integrated Community Programs (ICPs) in the districts of Aceh Barat and Nagan Raya. Fortunately, the ICPs in the two districts are all located reasonably close to one another. Once again, I have carried on gathering information for our database; made inquiries in a number of communities about school committees for our Child Youth Protection and Development (CYPD) department; and have collected GPS coordinates for all the sub-villages we work in. In addition, I have tested our radio by calling in to the Oxfam base in Meulaboh from a number of different locations. This is important in case there is an emergency but I think something was wrong with the radio because I could hear them while they could not hear me!

The teams I accompanied into the field have, among other things, assisted the Community Development Boards (CDBs) in Lueng Mane with a closed tender process and have helped them compile their first financial report in Damai, Seunebok Lhong and Seureumpoh. As it stands, too many mistakes are being made concerning the latter. Not that money is going missing, they keep all receipts carefully, but in the sense that calculations do not add up or that the financial books are not filled correctly, if at all. The capacities of the CDB treasurers clearly still need to be strengthened. One of the problems is that many communities have allocated the CDB functions to the candidates on the basis of the number of votes they received. In this system, the persons with the most, second most and third most votes automatically become coordinator, secretary and treasurer, respectively. The CDB treasurer in Seureumpoh, for instance, was illiterate, which, of course, is not very practical!

In the meantime, two new ICPs have been set up in Meulaboh; in Kuala Teripa and in Suak Geudeubang. In these communities, the CDR process is taking place at a swift pace. Within a few weeks, the communities have been informed about the CDR programme, have signed a partnership agreement and have undergone a comprehensive Community Participatory Assessment Workshop (CPAW) during which a number of participative exercises are carried out with the beneficiaries, culminating in an action plan. At present, the CDB members are being elected and will soon begin developing project proposals. The CDR teams now have much experience with the process and clearly have more confidence than they had a few months ago. The only downside to this accelerated process is that there is a limited amount of time to build up trust between the ICR and the community. Signing the partnership agreement, however, provides a great deal of security and Kuala Teripa and Suak Geudeubang have good relations with other communities we already have been working in for some time.

Finally, yesterday, I got to fly back to Banda Aceh from Meulaboh with a small plane from the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). I have flown with small planes before but never in a plane this size (six seats). I sat in the copilot’s seat, which was great! The view was fantastic, especially the bit from Meulaboh to Calang, along the coast. You can clearly see how the coast has been altered by the Tsunami and you get a good overview of all the infrastructure activities that have/are taken/taking place.

For your information, I am off to Bali and Lombok tomorrow morning so I will not be posting a log next week. I will publish some pictures if I get a chance but I am not making any promises.

Take care and see you next time,

Alex