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Dateline ACTSouth & south east Asia/Indonesia 06/05Health team helps heal with more than medicinesBy Emily Will, Mennonite Central CommitteeBanda Aceh, Indonesia, March 22, 2005—YEU: Young, Eager, Unstinting. While not the official meaning of the organization's acronym, these adjectives aptly describe the members of YAKKUM Emergency Unit's medical team here in the Banda Aceh area, one of four such teams in action in the northern tier of Sumatra, an island of Indonesia. Twenty-two individuals, none of whom appears older than 30, are not just working; they're on a mission to help Acehnese affected by the tsunami recoup health, homes, livelihoods, and some sense of autonomy and empowerment. The survivors lost all or some of these in a horrific end-of-the-world scenario last December 26, when a mighty earthquake shimmied multi-storied buildings to the ground and massive waves swept villages to sea. The Banda Aceh YEU team was among the first humanitarian groups on the scene, arriving within 72 hours of the tragedy. Because rescuers were taking casualties to the city's airport, the YEU team pitched a tent there, rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Two months and two headquarters locations later, they're still spending all day at camps for internally displaced persons and are often up late into the night compiling reports and organizing materials for the next day's visits. YEU's teams were formed in 2001 by parent organization Yayasan Kristen untuk Kesehatan Umm (YAKKUM), a Christian foundation for public health established by two synods of the Indonesian and Javanese churches in 1950. From the outset, the goal of the emergency medical units was holistic. Within Indonesia, they would respond to the immediate needs of survivors of conflict and natural disasters and also work with them longer term in peace- and community-building efforts to help restore that which was lost. A YEU pamphlet neatly sums up the organization's aim: "To help internally displaced persons, from any religious or racial background, to understand the root of their problems and to work together with them to find solutions." YEU is a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International and receives financial support from the members and partners of the alliance. In its four infant years, YEU has deployed teams to some 16 spots located from Indonesia's far west to its eastern edges. They have served people displaced by sectarian violence, by famine, by a bomb blast, by floods and landslides, by earthquakes, and by a volcanic eruption. The YEU unit based in Banda Aceh is responsible for the health and/or water and sanitation needs of some 2,350 individuals of all ages dispersed in 21 camps within an hour's drive of the city. While they take these responsibilities seriously, their style is casual. Dressed simply in jeans, a T-shirt and comfortable walking shoes, Dr. Sari Mutia Timur, 29, sits on mats under trees or tarps to talk with patients. If people are too infirm or elderly to come to her, she goes to them. If they express concerns about the water, Dr. Sari, as she is called here, hikes to the well and cranks up a bucket to test for brackishness. She holds and plays with babies and chats with mothers. She keeps track of camp residents who need help managing their diabetes. Her relaxed, unpresumptuous manner reassures people living on the edge and endears her to her fellow team members. A general practitioner, Dr. Sari has taken a year's leave from the sophisticated medical facilities of a hospital in the city of Yogyakarta, on the island of Java. While having to function in the camps without the accoutrements of modern medicine, she says she is gaining invaluable experience in post-disaster health care and enjoying the satisfaction of feeling she's making a difference to traumatized survivors. The YEU team in Banda Aceh recently shifted its focus from emergency medicine to routine health care, with a focus on prevention and education that will segue into community development. The new emphasis requires the internally displaced persons' active participation. The ability to work with and not just for displaced persons distinguishes YEU from many other medical services in the post-tsunami environment, says Jeanne Jantzi, co-director of ACT partner Mennonite Central Committee's program in Indonesia. Together with tsunami survivors in nine camps, the Banda Aceh team had by February 15 this year constructed 32 latrines, 29 washrooms, eight water tanks and one well. More recently, they've organized several men's and women's groups in which the participants decide their priorities, perhaps the establishment of a credit union or income-generating activities. YEU's commitment to incorporating local people in its staff facilitates this, Jantzi adds. Two-thirds of the Banda Aceh unit are from the surrounding community. They, too, were affected by the tsunami, and they speak Acehnese, often the sole language spoken by the displaced persons. (Only those with a formal education speak Indonesian, taught in schools as a means of unifying this multicultural nation.) The mixed staff provides a cross-cultural experience for the team itself. To hop from island to island in this far-flung archipelago is to jump from culture to culture. Team members from Java are discovering that the stereotypes they had of the Acehnese are just that—stereotypes. "We thought of them as demanding or difficult, and now when I get close with them I find it so easy to be fond of them," says Natalia Lia Caw, coordinator of the YEU Banda Aceh unit, noting that media coverage of the conflict between the Indonesian army and the Aceh separatist movement has led to the image. Humani Kristawan and Endra Bintara are both Christian nurses from central Java who jumped at the opportunity to help survivors of the tsunami, after seeing the shocking scenes of it on TV. They surmounted fears of going to what they understood to be a strict Muslim environment, of sectarian violence and of a repeat tsunami. They're glad they did; friends inhibited with similar fears now realize they were unfounded and are waiting in line for similar opportunities, the two young men relate. They've learned that their Muslim colleagues may take time to pray several times a day and the women may wear headscarves, but that these differences have no impact on their working relationships. That the team members, Acehnese and Javanese, like one another and get along well is evident to observers. They help one another, and joke and tease one another. At noontime, they may decide to hike a hill overlooking the ocean and sit on the grass to eat their lunch of rice and seasonings bundled together in palm leaves. The team's happy spirit infects others, injecting a dose of cheer into saddened lives. Sometimes that's the best medicine around. Other ACT members in Indonesia responding to the disaster in the country are:
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