The Tsunami Response Team of one of the largest Christian relief and development organisations in the world is targeting new camps and communities of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Indonesia’s tsunami-ravaged Aceh Province for food and non-food items (NFIs) distributions.

According to World Vision International (WVI), the response team distributed nearly 26 metric tons of monthly food rations to a total of 1,706 IDPs (403 households) in the Neuheun IDP camp northeast of Banda Aceh last week. Rice, noodles, cooking oil, high-energy biscuits and tins of fish were distributed along with NFIs — shovels, hammers, mosquito nets, hoes and prayer mats — to registered IDPs and host families.

"Our goal is to meet the immediate food needs of IDPs, host communities and other people who lost their livelihoods because of the tsunami," said Killen Otieno, interim commodities manager in Aceh. "This is the front line, where the tsunami hit with its hardest force. We are working hard to reduce people’s shock, aid their recovery and stabilise their communities."

Currently, the Aceh commodities team—comprised of 20 food monitors, three field supervisors and one coordinator—is providing monthly food rations to about 40,000 beneficiaries in the city of Banda Aceh and surrounding Aceh Besar district. The number is expected to reach 65,000 beneficiaries by the end of this month.

"We have gone into many camps, but this is one of the biggest distributions we’ve done so far," said commodity officer Nunun H. Ipung.

WVI reported that food commodities are being distributed in Aceh province through WV’s model of Group Distribution, where groups of families with similar household sizes are grouped together and given their individual and family rations to share. This method has been used successfully in most WV distributions in various countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

The distributions are carried out in cooperation with the Indonesian Red Cross and local partners. Community members are involved in distributions while also playing a role in beneficiary identification, distribution centre planning, organisation and crowd control.




Kenneth Chan
Ecumenical Press