Aceh NGOs

This Monday I was able to visit the FBA (Forum Bangun Aceh) office to meet with its directors and founder, Pak Azwar. They were all very nice and helpful, and I learned a lot about their organization. They were created in 2005 after the tsunami to help survivors, and has since grown into a leading NGO in this area. They provide educational services, microcredit, and enterprise development to tsunami survivors, victims of conflict, and the poor and disenfranchised. Their programs include education initiatives as well as a Microcredit program to benefit some of the poorest regions of Aceh – in fact, their work has reached about 5,000 people within 6 districts of Aceh. Their education initiatives include student placements, scholarships, training, and professional development. The microcredit program buys small businesses the assets or materials they need, and then the individual business owners repay the cost of the assets to FBA on a payment plan.

They’ve done a great deal for the Acehnese, and their organization keeps on growing and gaining momentum. So far they’ve assisted 900 micro businesses, completely rebuilt a school, reequipped 37 schools with furniture and books, coordinated an educational exchange program for a handful of Acehnese students, and supported the planting of 2,250 trees. It would be great to possibly work with them in the future. The work that they’ve done for their community is truly inspirational.

On Tuesday, my friends Dicky and Saiful showed me this organization called Ya Kita, which is a drug addiction treatment and recovery center. They have two offices in Aceh, one is the actual recovery center (for boys), and the main one is more of an education/youth center where they bring middle and high school students in and teach them about health, HIV/AIDS, and the consequences of drug use. Today was interesting because they were having an event with some middle and high school students, and I was able to see how they taught the youth about all of this.

The main facility is really cool looking. There are murals all over the wall that say things like “SAY NO TO DRUGS”, and “THEY’RE EASY TO USE, BUT DIFFICULT TO RECOVER FROM”. They’ve also got a wall where visitors can sign their names and write inspirational type messages.

Afterwards, we visited an organization called Pusat Ketrampilan Perempuan Sejahtera (PKPS), which translates to Skills Center for Happy Girls. It’s an NGO founded by this amazing lady who started this organization to help girls who had to discontinue their education or were victims of conflict, trafficking, abuse, etc. She teaches the girls how to sew, and then they sell their goods (clothes, purses, etc.) to the public. Her name is Cut Mutia, and she’s a charismatic Acehnese woman with a voice as big as her heart. She was very helpful and gave me a lot of information about what PKPS does and what she wants to do with it. She asked me if I could give the girls there English lessons, so I may start going there once a week as well to have a conversation group or something. When I left she gave me a couple of souvenirs – small purses that the girls at the center made, and jokingly told me that I should take her products back to America and fundraise for her.

Later, I went back to FBA (and got hopelessly lost along the way) to accompany one of the coordinators, Ira, to visit one of the businesses that they help. This trip’s purpose was mainly for conflict resolution, as there were a couple of small problems that this particular group was having. The business is a snack stand – there are a lot of those in Indonesia – and it’s run by a group of middle aged women. Apparently there was an issue with the group leadership that needed to be resolved. They all spoke in Acehnese, so I didn’t quite understand all of it, but I got the general gist of what they were talking about. The best part of this trip was seeing Ira handle the situation. She was phenomenal – very diplomatic and enthusiastic, offering all sorts of alternatives to handling the problem and encouraging the women to see it from different perspectives. The ladies were receptive to her advice, and according to Ira, there shouldn’t be another issue like this in the future for them.

Another good thing that happened today – I got to meet up with one of the researchers over at ARTI, Pak Dani. I had met him the first week I was here, but never got a chance afterwards to have a chat with him. He is a really great character – he’s sharp and very witty; he’s one of those people that can make fun of you and actually be funny about it. I told him about my advances in my research here concerning terrorism, and he put me in contact with a couple of people who promise to be very helpful in assisting me with collecting data. He’s also got a book launching this Saturday that he invited me to; he said that there would be a few people there who could help me. I want to be able to collect as much data as possible about my topic while I’m here and hope that, even despite the short frame of time I have left, that I can bring a lot of data back home to work with.

I love having full days like these. They make me feel so productive, and considering that I have to be back at the asrama so early, it’s good to get a lot of things done earlier in the day and pack as much into the daylight hours as possible.