Please note that all the stories here are about women in Aceh. The final exerpt is very important because it is from a study done very recently on life for the women of Aceh. Note that violence against women is not pervasive nor is it related to tsunami aid in any way.

Oxfam:

Mahmulia’s navy blue t-shirt is flecked with yellow and her hair is speckled with brown paint. “This is my second day of painting,” she giggles.
Oxfam is training Mahmulia and 36 other women to paint the new homes being built in their village, Beuring In, which was destroyed by the tsunami.

Before the tsunami, house painting was a male-dominated occupation. Women’s activities tended to center on working in the rice fields or running a street stall. The unprecedented scale of construction work in Beuring In means there’s high demand for skilled painters, which creates paid job opportunities for local women.

Ainy Fauziyah of Oxfam explains: “The women asked if they could paint and we said yes. In this area, they will paint 48 permanent houses built by Oxfam. Each group of two or three painters is paid 350,000 rupiah (US$35) by Oxfam.”

Today, Mahmulia is painting a living room ceiling, and some window and door frames, as a practice run before the project starts for real. Working in small groups, the women will be expected to paint one home a week.

With so many new houses under construction, they are likely to have work for a long time to come. Once the Oxfam homes are completed, Ainy plans to recommend the women to other house building agencies in the area.

For Oxfam, this project is about more than simply creating jobs. It is also about women becoming empowered to improve their lives and their community.

Oxfam:

At the end of August 2006, Oxfam celebrated an important milestone in its program in Aceh. Hundreds of people from the town of Sigli and surrounding villages attended a party marking the handover of Oxfam’s tsunami projects, which helped more than 15,000 survivors.

“It’s always good news when an aid organization is able to handover to its beneficiaries and complete its program,” says Pamela Young, Oxfam program manager. “We worked together with communities to plan activities, carry out training and implement projects. Communities helped to identify the people in greatest need. We also spent a lot of time consulting with male and female community representatives before projects started. And we kept everyone informed as work progressed.”

Two-thirds of Sigli, home to almost 14,000 people, was destroyed by the tsunami. With Oxfam’s support, the community rebuilt more than 90 houses in neighboring villages, constructing nearly 400 toilets and repairing the public health infrastructure. In addition, more than 100 bathing facilities were reopened, 250 wells were repaired, 40 incinerators were installed and a drainage system of more than 1,300 meters was built.

Nearly 400 cash grants were distributed to women and men to open street stalls, to start new businesses trading peanuts or collecting mussels, and to revitalize traditional crafts such as mat-weaving. Oxfam also trained groups of women and local NGOs to develop their business skills and boost their confidence as small-scale entrepreneurs.

Oxfam’s public health promotion team trained water and sanitation committees in three villages and five baraks (temporary barracks), provided advice on simple treatments for diarrhea, and established more than 140 hygiene clubs to educate children through puppet shows, sport and art. The health team also distributed bed nets and sprayed against mosquitoes to combat the threat of malaria and dengue fever.

The community of Sigli has now taken over responsibility for the various activities. Members of the Oxfam-trained water and sanitation committee have teamed up with public health authorities to organize community health awareness projects.

Noni Delfina, a team leader for the Oxfam livelihood program survived the tsunami but lost her older brother. Noni says she has seen many changes since she joined the program, especially among the women: “When they received the grants, they became more confident. They were happy, not only because of the money, but because it made them free to work and because people cared about them.”

Save the Children

Save the Children has worked in Indonesia’s Aceh province for over 30 years. Since the earthquake and tsunami of December 26, 2004, assistance has been provided to more than 276,000 survivors. The overall budget for the entire tsunami relief program in Aceh is U$156.6 million. Save the Children’s Aceh Program focuses on six sectors: Child Protection, Education, Livelihoods, Health, Food Security and Infrastructure, Construction and Engineering. The program’s objective is: “To support Acehnese children and their families to achieve safe, healthy and productive lives and to restore and strengthen communities in a manner that respects local culture.”

World Vision

Cut Laila Sinina has a warm welcoming smile for visitors. And, today, the 44-year-old has good reason to smile. After losing her parents and everything she owned in the December 2004 tsunami that ravaged Indonesia’s Aceh province, she is starting to rebuild her life, one stitch at a time.

Prior to the tsunami, Mother Cut (pronounced Choot), as she is known throughout the village, her husband Teuku Maimun, an agricultural supervisor, and their two young children lived in a large 10 bedroom house. They were the surrogate family of 34 students from remote villages who attended the local high school and boarded in their home. Her large brood fondly called her Mother Cut.

Fortunately, all but two of the students were on holidays back in their home villages when the tsunami struck. Although, she managed to save her children, she could not save her aged parents who were too old to flee from the oncoming sea. The boarders have not come back and her family recently moved into a two bedroom house constructed by World Vision.

“Even though it’s small, I am content,” Mother Cut says. “Before this, I had nothing.”

The lounge room is now crammed with sewing equipment as Mother Cut has channeled her energy into reforming the village sewing cooperative whose work was famous throughout the province prior to the tsunami. With the help of World Vision’s economic recovery program, the cooperative received 14 new sewing machines, an over locker and an embroidery machine in June 2005. Their first major contract was to sew hundreds of school uniforms for World Vision which donated them to local school children. With the profits, the cooperative was able to buy raw materials and now, it seems, they are keeping their village clothed.

Mother Chut can cut and sew three garments a day and manages to make a profit of USD$8 a day from this work. She is also training other tailors including teenage girls in the intricate art of Acehnese embroidery which involves placing gold thread into intricate designs and stitching it in place.

The cooperative recently applied for a license to export their garments and embroidery to other provinces and she hopes its members will be able to increase their profits by sending consignments to Indonesia’s third largest city, Medan, a 12 hour drive from their village. “Once we get this license, it will also serve as security if we want to loan money from the (government) department of industry to expand our business in the future,” she enthuses.

When Mother Cut was a young girl she started a Bachelor of Education majoring in English at one of the provincial capital’s most prestigious universities. Alas, after completing half the degree, she was suddenly plagued by inexplicable migraines and forced to discontinue her studies.

Upon returning to her village of Suak Timah, 230 kilometres southeast of the capital of Banda Aceh, she became interested in the local women’s cooperative and learned the intricate art of embroidery from her grandmother. The entrepreneurial Mother Cut soon found herself taking on a leadership role and touring exhibitions of their handicrafts throughout the province.

Prior to the tsunami, Mother Cut’s cooperative of 40 members from three villages exported their work to Malaysia. Sadly, 15 of their members did not survive that day. She now leads a 19 member cooperative, all from the village of Suak Timah.

The members hope that, one day soon, they will be able to export their work abroad again. Meanwhile, a portion of the small profits they make is being carefully put away for their children’s education.

World Vision: Still Standing Tall [pdf file] – Addressing Gender Issues in Banda Aceh

Despite this evidence presented in the national commissionÂ’s
report, at community level, people still strongly deny that domestic
violence is an occurrence that affects them and their families17.
Communities are reluctant to acknowledge and, as a consequence,
tackle violence. The only type of violence they have expressed a
willingness to discuss, albeit with a high degree of hesitation, is
that which they suffered as a result of the armed conflict. Between
2001 and 2005 more than 14,000 of the conflicts victims were
women18. Sadly, despite the conflict coming to an end, women
continue to fall victim to abuses within their communities.

Within traditional Acehnese culture there is a tendency to blame
women for any social wrongs, a factor which significantly contributes
to the communities denial of gender based violence19. Often when
a woman suffers some violent act the victim is accused of inciting
the violence, a tendency particularly prevalent with regard to cases
of sexual abuse. For example, in a recent incident, five people
raped a young high school student. Instead of portraying the young
woman as a victim of this violent act the local media presented
the woman as almost complicit in the commission of the crime20.
The media reported the facts of the case in a way which implied
the young woman had induced the men to perform the crime.
Sadly, this case is not an anomaly. In fact, there have been several
other cases where the perpetrators of such crimes have not been
condemned, yet the victim has been forced to suffer high moral
sanctions and social exclusion. [snip]

It is important to note that the women in Banda Aceh enjoy a
relatively unrestricted life in comparison to the lives of women in
some Middle East Islamic countries22. They are able to attend to
school and to study in universities; they can drive cars with many
even riding motorcycles. In Banda Aceh women are able to move
freely through the city and to be employed in a trade of their
choosing. Acehnese women have always been an important part of
the labour force being involved in employment activities that range
from working in the rice fields through to business, working as
government officials or in administration roles.

Nevertheless, the cultural codes of the province still impose upon
women a series of mandatory cultural norms which they must follow
and which can prevent their participation in civil life. These include
the compulsory use of a head-cover and clothing which covers arms,
neck and ears. In addition to a variety of other rules, women are
expected to conduct themselves in a morally irreproachable way.
Any breach of these regulations can result in a series of moral and
legal sanctions that range from insults in public through to admonitions,
fines, imprisonment and even flogging. According to the 2005 Annual
Report of the National Commission on Violence Against Women,
eight women were flogged in Aceh accused of indecency or immoral
acts23. In the city, the Wilayatul Hisbah – Islamic police- are entrusted
with supervising the fulfillment of these procedures. During the
armed conflict women faced violence the hope was that the peaceprocess
would bring an end to this. Some local NGOs have, however,
expressed concern that women are suffering from what they have
coined a “transference of violence”24. By this they mean that the
physical violence previously exercised by the groups involved in the
armed conflict, has been transferred into a psychological violence
being exercised by the Islamic police.

Acehnese women do not question the enforcement of the Islamic
dress code but rather accept it as a distinctive part of their culture
and religion with the majority women proud to wear traditional
dress. However, many do complain about the excessive social pressure
and inequity they still suffer. One extreme example of such social
pressure and discrimination is the instance where many community
members and religious leaders actually accused women of causing
the tsunami25. The tsunami was a punishment for the inappropriate
conduct of the women, in particular for those that sometimes do
not use a head-cover or dress in very tight clothes, according to
some community members and religious leaders. [snip]

At present the Aceh bill27 is under debate in the National
Parliament. The bill aims to grant a degree of autonomy to
the province of Aceh as part of the peace process.
Importantly, there is one specific article within this new
law which seeks to establish a quota system whereby at
least 30% of the members of the local political parties
must be women.

This quota is not something new in Indonesian law28. In
2003 the law on elections (Law 12/2003) established that
all the political parties women must nominate 30% of
candidates for the parliamentary elections29. Unfortunately,
this law had a minimal effect in the last national elections
of 2004. Despite the fact that 32% of the candidates were
female, only 11% achieved a seat in the parliament in
contrast to 89% of elected males30.

If the new Aceh bill is approved it has the potential to
instigate some important changes within the local political
local scene. Through generating more spaces for participation
by women there is the potential to also change the political
and legislative agenda of the province.

Sunday Times: Tsunami survivors given the lash

Disaster donations help Islamic vigilante force impose punishments on women

Now, that’s alarming. But here are the paragraphs that support this assertion.

blank space intentional

Here’s what the story really says:

International aid workers and Indonesian women’s organisations are now expressing dismay that the flow of foreign cash for reconstruction has allowed the government to spend scarce money on a new bureaucracy and religious police to enforce puritan laws, such as the compulsory wearing of headscarves.

Some say there are more “sharia police” than regular police on the local government payroll and that many of them are aggressive young men.

The irony is that sharia was first introduced into Aceh as part of a package of measures that ultimately succeeded in making peace in the long-running guerrilla war between the conservative, independence-minded Acehnese and the Indonesian state.

The 2004 tsunami, which killed 170,000 Indonesians, devastated the whole northern coast of Sumatra and shocked both sides in the conflict into reaching a deal after 30 years of fighting that had claimed 15,000 lives. It is, so far, a success story. The separatist guerrillas, known as GAM, have decommissioned most of their weapons and the Indonesian army has withdrawn most of its combat troops.

Last Monday the province held the first democratic elections in its history and early returns suggested that voters had elected as governor Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel spokesman who escaped from jail after the tsunami.

For international donors, who gave generously to end the nightmare of the tsunami, the next few months will pose hard choices. “Nobody intended our aid to subsidise this,” said one United Nations official.

Here are the facts.

1. Local governments in parts of the devestated region have begun supporting sharia.
2. The religious police are paid by the local governments.
3. No donations are being used for this purpose.
4. The region has held its first democratic election.
5. The governor elected is a former rebel.
6. The peace between the rebels and the national government is holding.
7. Only one person is quoted by name, and one is nameless. Two quotes in total.
8. Only one person is named as having been arrested by the religious police.

There are no facts in this article that support the sub-head. There is no evidence that tsunami donations have been used to advance sharia. Indeed, the only news in the article is very good for Aceh, free elections and the participation of former rebels peacefully in the process.

As I have shown in past posts, the vast majority of complaints about tsunami aid come from the fly-in, fly-out NGO’s and the UN and government functionaries that are forced to live in hotels in Indonesia where the people are “different”. Rather than accept that the locals want a say over the relief efforts, these whiners will say anything to puff their efforts up and dinigrate the locals.

I do not doubt that there is graft and intolerence in the region. Kinda like Louisiana, say. I’d expect far more facts and fewer speculations from the Sunday Times, but it seems intent on earning the prefix “the once, great”.

BBC

Philanthropy is so well established it has spawned its own academic discipline.

New York University has a department of philanthropy. There is also the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

I have even attended a philanthropy workshop in the bowels of Congress, where rich Americans learned how to give their money away and how to make sure it was spent on the right causes.

Whether it is the quest for a legacy, the desire to change the world, the determination not to spoil one’s children or simply the tax code, Americans – wealthy and not so wealthy – are giving their dollars away by the lorry load.

And the rest of the world has a long way to catch up.

The author takes a shot at the United States government by suggesting that private Americans gave more for tsunami relief than our government did. He’s “Yeah, but…” correct. No other government could send a carrier battle group and a whole bunch of Marines to do what they did in those first days. I suggest that the costs of being ready to be able to do that count in part if you do the sums.

He mentions James Smithson, who gave the world the Smithsonian Instutution, Andrew Carnegie who could be aptly called the father of the modern free public library, and modern givers like Bill Gates and Ted Turner. He correctly points out that Americans, private citizens, businesses and groups, give more than anyone else in the world.

People will quibble with the per capita numbers. Those always leave out giving to churches and church related issues. Americans are among the few left in the world who even attend churches much less give to them. And church giving, Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision, Catholic Charities, counts for more than just dollars. Those groups put people on the ground where they are needed, not just holding press conferences in London or Bern. That’s the other hand of American giving, the time we give. The Scouts, any sort of organized sports, community theater, firefighting and EMS, all could not exist without volunteers and Americans do just that.

Here’s a bloke who sees a part of America many don’t.

Think Progress e-mails me with a fine example of pork.

The junior Senator from Mississippi seems to have inserted into an aid package a provision that would advance Northrop Grumman up to a half billion dollars towards future contract payments by the government, as an assist in recovering from hurricane damages. They’re insured and are “discussing” the matter with their insurance company. This is just an interest free loan by the taxpayers.

For the non-accountants, the revenue number may be impressive but it does not reflect cash flow. It includes accounts receivable and possibly amortizations of cash received in prior periods but recognized in the current period. Their 4.6% profit in 2005 is modest, to say the least, and again does not reflect cash in hand but just the net of revenues over expenses. Their cash flow statements show a need for some cash. They have about $5 billion in debt on their balance sheet.

It is not unheard of for a vendor and a customer to have a relationship where they provide a little support to eachother in tough times. My objection is the use of my tax dollars. Both Senators from Mississippi are noted for bring home the bacon, but bacon is still pork no matter how you fry it up.

It’s the Brits that have complaints, but I imagine most aid agencies will agree.

Times

Banda Aceh was ground zero in the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, which claimed more than 200,000 lives across the Indian Ocean. More people died here than anywhere else.

Now two charities that raised unprecedented sums in Britain have fallen victim to rip-offs that ruined their efforts to house the survivors and have forced them to suspend key projects.

Save the Children and Oxfam were both targeted by unscrupulous building contractors who took their money, only to build structures so flimsy that a new wave would wash them away.

Save the Children may have to write off more than £400,000 worth of building contracts. Oxfam, which counts its losses in “tens of thousands of pounds”, has stopped its construction work around Banda Aceh until investigators establish the extent of the abuse.

Go read the article then come back.

A couple of mistakes on the part of the Brits leap out. First, they seem to have made little effort to inspect the projects they funded during the construction. And, secondly, they seem to have been trying to run the projects from London.

You gotta be on site. You gotta get dirty. That’s what prevents a lot of corruption. As well known and respected as Save the Children and Oxfam are, they appear to have just thrown money at Indonesia rather than investing in people working on scene.

Yes, I think this is happening a lot. It’s a mindset in the international aid community that keeps far too many of them in their nice, air conditioned offices in civilized countries while they wire aid money to the disaster and pat themselves on the back.

I would also wager that the same problems are not happening with the religious-based aid programs. Oh, they’re paying corrupt locals for the right to be there and provide aid, but they aren’t losing anywhere near as much because they are on the spot, watching and in many cases doing some or all of the work.