Planning for Long-Term Programs Now, Agency Continues to Distribute Water, Medical Supplies, Mattresses, Food, Health Kits in Indonesia.

BANDA ACEH – Friday, January 14 - International humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) reported today that its teams of mental health workers are continuing to offer one-on-one trauma counseling in Lamreung in the Baru Imara District of Indonesia's tsunami devastated Aceh region.

"Our psychologists and medical team are particularly targeting homeless people who are now living with host families rather than those in camps," says CWS Emergency Response Program Director Rick Augsburger. Augsburger, who returned today from assessments in Banda Aceh and Bangkok, Thailand, said CWS's mobile clinic in Aceh is conducting counseling in each area it
visits.

"Beyond initial person-to-person counseling work, our Psycho-Social Mental Health (PMH) team established an ongoing support group in Tanjung Deai, as part of our intention to establish ongoing, self-help support structures for coming months," he said.

"Banda Aceh will be the focus of CWS response in Indonesia," says Augsburger.  "We plan to assist 50,000 displaced persons in Banda Aceh, both now and over the long term," he said, "with a special emphasis on children, female-headed households, widows, the elderly, unemployed families with limited means, and people or families who have not yet received aid."

Augsburger says, "CWS Indonesia's large regional staff and local partners were well positioned to begin delivering aid almost from day one. "But, while immediate emergency efforts continue in Aceh and other affected areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India," he said, "we're already planning
long-term recovery programs."

As part of its immediate emergency aid, CWS is delivering medical services at camps including Darussalam.  

Agency med teams finding respiratory, skin infections

The CWS Banda Aceh-based medical team reported respiratory tract infections as the most serious problem in the region to date, followed by myalgia (muscle pains and aches) and skin infections.

The CWS medical team confirmed Indonesian media reports of an unspecified skin disease, which, says CWS Indonesia, seems only to be affecting men who took part in assisting mass burials. The medical team said the skin disease may be a form of contamination from decomposed bodies or water contaminated by dead bodies, or possibly a psychosomatic reaction.

CWS workers in Banda Aceh further report an influx of patients at local hospitals and a continued lack of medical supplies, including medication for chronic illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure. On Tuesday (Jan. 11) the CWS medical team received a shipment of medicines from Indonesia's North Sumatran capital of Medan.

Church World Service's latest airlift of 100 IMA Medical Boxes is expected to arrive in Indonesia from the U.S. within the next few days, containing sufficient drugs and medical products to treat the common illnesses of 100,000 children and adults for about three months. The shipment also
includes 42,000 rice and soy packaged meals and 1,512 hygiene relief kits from partner Mennonite Central Committee. In all, the shipment is valued at $428,680.

Augsburger says, "Earlier this week we received badly needed drinking water supplies, mattresses, 1,000 CWS Blankets and 500 CWS Gift of the Heart Health Kits in Banda Aceh. We also distributed 1,300 food packets in the affected areas of Lambaro, Sibreh, and Darussalam."

The agency and volunteers from its local partner Mamamia of Banda Aceh are distributing food to displaced survivors who are not living in camps. Government officials report the number of people now displaced in Aceh and North Sumatra who are living in camps and in temporary shelters at 655,144.

CWS is planning food security, livelihood projects now.

Augsburger says CWS's post-crisis response in the area of the provincial capital of Banda Aceh will include support to strengthen food security and livelihood recovery by providing seeds, tools, fishing equipment, training assistance, and capacity building.

CWS Indonesia expects its reconstruction phase programs to include 1,500 shelters and construction of public infrastructure in Banda Aceh, 440 shelters in Nias, and 2,192 in Aceh Jaya. CWS Indonesia representatives added, however, that reconstruction programs might need to adapt to the unpredictable situation in Aceh.

With more than 100 staff at its Jakarta office and secular and interfaith local partners, CWS has worked in Indonesia since 1964. Its Pakistan regional office sent post-tsunami rapid response teams to Sri Lanka to assess needs and launch emergency relief there, working in tandem with its
Sri Lankan partner. Concurrently, CWS partner Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) continues to implement emergency response in India.

To date Church World Service has shipped more than $1 million in initial emergency supplies and medicines to the battered region and is channeling contributions to immediate and long-term support.

"Church World Service and its supporters remain active and committed to those in need in the 80-plus other areas of the world we serve," said Augsburger, "but those in South Asia and East Africa affected by the tsunami are going to need the world's long-term attention. They'll have it from us," he said, encouraging cash donations to sustain the long-term programs.

Community groups across the U.S. are collecting health, school kits for CWS.

As part of the historic international outpouring of contributions and compassion for tsunami victims, thousands of Church World Service "Gift of the Heart" Health and School Kits are being assembled and collected by school, scout and church groups in communities across the U.S.  

(For information on assembling Gift of the Heart Kits and IMA Medicine Boxes, visit the home page of this website.)