End of Emergency Article
Eight-year-old Wanelia and her younger brother had been asleep for four hours when she
was suddenly awoken by a violent jolt. For a moment she was too scared to move, but
with every second the jolting grew stronger and just when she thought it couldn’t get any
worse there was a sudden cracking sound and the shaking became even more violent. The
house began to make a wrenching noise as the earth beneath it started to buckle and tear.
Her mother screamed to run outside and tried to reach for her. Wanelia struggled to find
her footing, but it was impossible to stand. In the pitch dark she scrambled for the door,
holding on to the shaking walls as furniture fell all around her. Her mother and father had
also been thrown to the ground, but had managed to grab hold of her baby brother. As
they staggered for the front door the whole house started to crack with the strain. All that
could be heard outside was the terrible sound of houses crashing down and people
screaming. Just as Wanelia reached the door her house collapsed. A large lintel fell on
her leg, crushing and breaking it and wounding her head.
In the morning the village of Desa
Hilizulo’o tano in South Nias, was able
to fully assess the damage. Many
homes had been destroyed in the
massive earthquake and many like
Wanelia had been injured. Luckily noone from Wanelia’s village died.
Wanelia
The surfaid team didn’t see her until 3 April 2005 (6 days after the earthquake). She had
spent six days immobile and in pain in one of the camps.
Dr. Roseane put her leg in a splint before she was evacuated to the triage center in
Gunung Sitoli on the UN helicopter on 3 April 2005.
We have since heard that she is being treated in the Rumah Sakit PTP9 in Medan
SurfAid team
More than seven months after the devastating December 26th 2004 Indian Ocean
Earthquake and Tsunami, SurfAid’s emergency program has officially ended. SurfAid
teams are now focusing all their energies on the far-reaching long-term development
programs that are the organization’s hallmark.
Number of people reached
Number of children aged 6 months to 15 years immunized
Number of people treated
Number of people evacuated
Number of impregnated mosquito nets distributed
Tons of food and emergency aid distributed
157,527
16,723
2,944
63
24,808
325 (approx)
Kristen Stokes: SurfAid International staff members from Nias who had gone home to
celebrate Christmas with their families were on the island when the earthquake hit. They
immediately started coordinating the first hours of the relief effort. Following news that
other NGOs were having difficulty getting beyond the capital Gunung Sitoli, SurfAid
medical teams immediately headed for the south of the island. They were the only
doctors there and people were desperate for help. Along with Pompiers Sans Frontiers
and IMC SurfAid ran a 24-hour clinic in Teluk Dalam treating and evacuating people as
fast as they could be brought to us. Some of them walked 10-15km to see us. We also
sent a team to Lagundri and Sorake, Surfing destinations further along the coast where
we did a very quick clinic and handed out mosquito nets.
People in critical condition were evacuated, their likelihood of survival would have been
much less without SurfAid.
The primary goal of the program, besides preventing disease, is education. People don’t
know about malaria. This program is giving communities education and making them
aware of disease.
When we had the helicopter donated by NZ Aid and our teams were assisted by the
AusAID medical teams we traveled deep in to the mountains and the jungle. Thanks to
the man power and the logistics, we were able to scour the area and found a 10-year-old
boy with a broken femur. He had been lying there for 10 days before he could be airlifted
out by SurfAid. It was just wonderful/incredible to be able to do that.
The marine base was ivaluable to get around. We were able to move people fast, carry
teams and medicines and maintain the integrity of our vaccines by keeping them in a
cold chain.
Andrew Griffiths: Today marks a historic day for SurfAid, I am heartened by the impact
that we have had in the villages and incredibly proud of what the team in Indonesia have
been able to achieve with limited resources, time and emergency experience. They have
all operated with passion, professionalism and commitment that is indicative of the
SurfAid culture. We have together with our donors brought emergency humanitarian
relief to areas that were receiving none. As we now look to the future and transition out
of the emergency mode we are committed for the long term to the people of the areas
we have helped, the long term needs are extreme and SurfAid is working with the health
departments and communities to develop community based health initiatives to improve
the health of the people and the devastated health infrastructure.
SurfAid’s response was highlighted by speed and local knowledge, the relationships with
the local surf operators and boat captains was a key success factor in providing critical
life saving care and disease prevention where it was needed most. The Islands off
Sumatra are isolated at the best of times, and as a consequence of the disaster the
breakdown in local transportation, roads and bridges meant that the use of boats and the
helicopter saved many lives that would otherwise have been lost.
In the midst of one of the worlds worst ever humanitarian crises it was very important
that SurfAid stay true to our mandate, we understand and know health and medical
interventions that provide the highest return in lives for donation dollars. SurfAid has
serviced a population of over 150,000 with medical interventions including patient care,
immunizations, malaria control, nutrition and hygiene and has spent over 70% of the
US$3m in funds we were donated or awarded. As we now turn our attention to the long
term it is our knowledge and commitment to health issues and to the poorest people in
the most remote communities that will guide us in our projects. It has been a successful
period for both our beneficiaries and our donors which we hope to continue long into the
future.
Bart: SurfAid is building on both the success of our emergency interventions in Nias and
the surrounding islands, and the obvious chronic and acute health needs that we identified
during our missions there. We have reached over 150,000 people in all of the tsunami and
earthquake affected island groups – most of these in the most remote areas that have
received no other assistance, and continue to receive little or no assistance. The
remoteness of these communities creates huge challenges for the people who live there;
reaching them effectively has been our biggest challenge, but we’re proud to say that we
overcame all the difficulties and look forward to working with them in the future.
Based on our field work, discussions with the Nias government and direct assessments of
communities that are currently underway, we plan to fulfill our community-based health
promotion mandate by working with the communities themselves to identify their biggest
health needs, and finding ways of working together to meet those needs.
We will transition from the direct provision of health care to working with village
institutions to help reestablish key village-level health structures, provide people with the
skills and knowledge necessary to improve their own health, and help them access
sustainable public health care for the future.
Dave Jenkins: "Surfaids has a number of strategies that will best ensure village health
gains are not only sustainable but spark a cascade of changes from within family health
practices to advocating for new policies and health services at the district and regional
governement levels. These strategies are capable of spreading health
gains across enitre regions. Further, we can use similar strategies that build on
this success to encourage and support communities to address non health issues such
as livelihoods and poor education levels. This is not easy. People are resistant to
change. In attempting to do good its possible to do harm by overly speedy projects that
create handout expectations and attitudes amongst villagers. The challenges of working
in these isolated disempowered communities are immense. However Surfaid are
fortunate to have surfing corporate partners and other donors to join us in our long term
committment to these surfing regions. Thus and only with time, can
communities truely capitalise on the momentum of positive change that the Tsunami
response has begun.
Within this process SurfAid recognises that due to our success, we are growing rapidly
and must remain focussed on our key original mandate and step by step field strategy.
We will closely monitor the impacts of our community activities which enables us to
constantly improve our effectiveness, cost efficiency and prevention of wasted resources
currently seen as a major risk for organisations in Sumatera".