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Home > Aceh
Response To Aceh – programme overview
‘Response to Aceh’ is an initiative which was set up and
designed to recognise and alleviate Health, Nutrition and Early Childhood
education problems in Aceh following the devastating Tsunami disaster
on December 26, 2004.
The Initiative consisted of two integrated projects: Early Childhood
Education and Health & Nutrition education for parents
All its activities concentrated on helping mothers and children from
impoverished backgrounds living in five sub-districts in Aceh Barat affected
by the tsunami.
Though starting later than many other NGO’s, ‘Response to
Aceh’ assisted and empowered local people to help themselves with
great emphasis being put on the sustainability of the programmes themselves.
The following is a summary of activities undertaken by ‘Response
to Aceh’ since October 2005.
 Early
Childhood Education
Learning from the experiences of other NGO programmes, Response to Aceh
(R2A) set up Early Learning Centres for young children living in refugee
camps and barracks after the tsunami. In Indonesia these early learning
centres are called Pondok Belajar dan Bermain Anak (PBB-Anak).
All early learning centres were run and managed by local community volunteer
teachers who were themselves trained by ‘Response to Aceh’.
Training volunteer community teachers
Regular training sessions for volunteer community teachers were held
from March 2006. Initial training was followed by the gradual establishment
of early learning centres within the refugee camps and barracks, which
provided much needed stimulation for around 150 refugee children in four
different locations.
With reconstruction, families have now been re-housed in permanent accommodation
and ‘Response to Aceh’ have liaised with community leaders
to ensure that wherever possible, the pre schools continue to run, thereby
enabling mothers to continue in their work as pre school teachers and
helping young children continue their education.
All equipment initially used in early learning centres in the refugee
camps and barracks, have now been distributed to the permanent pre schools.
 Health
and Nutrition
Focusing on the provision of health education programmes for mothers
and community health workers, these health and nutrition activities, designed
and run by R2A, took place in refugee camps and local community health
centres.
Training sessions for volunteer community health workers were successfully
conducted in four refugee camps.
Community Health Workers who attended R2A training sessions were, in
total, responsible for monitoring the health and welfare of 143 children
under the age of 5 years old. For this reason, proper Health and Nutrition
training was vital. In all locations regular follow up training was undertaken.
From pre-training questionnaires, it was found that the knowledge of
community health workers on issues relating to community health was minimal
and they lacked the confidence to carry out health education teaching
themselves in their own community health clinics.
During feedback received from community health workers post training
by R2A, it was found that health workers felt very much more confident
in their own ability. They were keen to ask questions and felt that they
had learnt a great deal. All community health workers were eager to attend
follow up training sessions.
 Response
from mothers and other members of the community was very good and we are
optimistic that our approach will yield very good sustainable results.
R2A have now handed over the follow-up training sessions to other NGO’s
remaining in the field.
Health education classes for mothers were started in June 200. All mothers
who had children attending R2A early education classes were eligible to
attend.
Topics such as how to make a nutritionally balanced meal, health and
hygiene issues and child growth were discussed with parents. Children
were weighed monthly and then their results discussed with parents. The
project did not provide food for the children, preferring instead to teach
and encourage mothers how to provide a good nutritious meal for their
children.
This simple programme of teaching and encouragement coupled with regular
health sessions resulted in tremendous changes in the type of mid morning
snack brought in by children to the pre schools. Rather than buying cheap
snacks from local vendors as before, after just two months of attending
the Health and Nutrition sessions, mothers took the time to prepare a
much more balanced meal. This behavioral change much improved the health
of the children.
‘Response to Aceh’ also facilitated the formation of “Ibu
Sadar Gizi” or ‘mothers who are aware of nutrition issues’.
Mothers have been encouraged and advised how to share knowledge they learnt
through health sessions with R2A, with other mothers in their neighbourhoods.
In this way the health education project reaches out to far more families
and children and continues to exert a sustainable effect to this day.
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