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Chair’s report: June 6th, 2006
The most recent earthquake in Central Java on May 27 has once again caused unprecedented devastation and grief in our host country. A significant number of individual donations for the first phase of immediate emergency relief (i.e. donations of money, foods, blankets, tents, shelters, clothing and medicinal supplies) has already been delivered by individual teachers and support staff in our community. These efforts at emergency relief are acknowledged within this update. The second phase of rehabilitation and reconstruction of infrastructure (i.e. rebuilding schools, houses, roads and community clinics) will begin within a few weeks.
On June 2, the JIS Cares – JIS Peduli task force made up of 15 representatives of constituent groups in the larger JIS community (students, parents, faculty, School Council, administration, and alumni), reconvened to look for ways and means of managing a JIS response for the reconstruction phase in Central Java. Faced with this new challenge, we have revised our mission to expand our assistance to the most recent victims in Central Java and allow us to be poised for any future disasters should they occur. Our focus remains on delivering assistance to children in disaster-affected areas, and on the re-establishment of schools and educational facilities.
The task force maintains the vision that the need for access to good education is a primary focus in the rehabilitation process in Aceh. We are now extending that vision and focus in an attempt to assist the children in Central Java. Donations to JIS Cares from this point forward will be allocated to projects in Central Java for the reconstruction of educational facilities. All proceeds from the Letters from Aceh book, as well as all funds already in our accounts before today will remain allocated to projects in Aceh.
Recent JIS Activities for Central Java:
- PIE: Various teachers organizing efforts via their church and other communities for relief
- PEL: A donations “bucket” has been set up in the library – funds raised will come to JIS Cares
- MS: Organized a Rock for Yogja concert on Friday afternoon with MS and HS bands performing for 2 hours to a crowd of about 60 kids raised 6 million rupiah.
- MS: Some funds from last MS dance were going to be diverted to earthquake relief.
- MS: Boxes of clothing and boxed milk products collected and sent on Friday evening. More donations being sought this week.
- MS: Used school supplies are being collected for distribution at the end of the year.
- HS: An ad hoc collection resulted in 27,000,000 raised. 50% will go to relief efforts and 50% will come to JIS Cares for a reconstruction project.
- Classified Staff: Set up JIS-ACT (Aksi Cepat Tanggap) have done a drive for funds, food and clothing and have already made one delivery (primarily) to relatives of JIS Staff affected by the earthquake. JIS-ACT will work with JIS Cares on future fundraising efforts.
Our partners and projects in Aceh – Ujong Battee Kindergarten
JIS Cares is currently managing $145,000 in donations. Much of that money has come from children and parents not only in the direct JIS community, but also in schools and communities that looked to us as a trusted partner in delivering aid and assistance in accordance with that vision and focus. Communities in Jakarta and in schools around the world donated proceeds from bake sales, school fairs, card sales, math contests, car cleaning, lunch money and pocket money. Many fundraisers required children to sacrifice both their own time and money. In March 2006, we started to disburse our funds for the school projects in Aceh.
Donations to JIS Cares from students, parents and corporate sponsors as well as profits from local and international sales of the book Letters from Aceh enabled the task force to partner with AMURT in the building of a kindergarten in Ujong Battee. Our agreement with AMURT, underwritten with a financial commitment by Schlumberger to fund this project to completion, is for the construction of a 3-room kindergarten in Ujong Battee. The construction of this kindergarten is near completion and will open its doors to students in July 2006.
More details on AMURT and its projects can be found on the website http://www.amurt.net/aceh/index.html
Pictures of USINDO project – on left, members JIS Cares taskforce at groundbreaking on March 25th,
on right design plan for library
Our partners and projects in Aceh – USINDO Aceh School Project
Our other partner, USINDO, is managing an Aceh School Project which targets the urgent need for teachers and schools in Banda Aceh through construction of a nine-classroom SMU (equivalent to grades 10-12) in partnership with Syiah Kuala University (UNSYIAH), the province’s preeminent university, the Department of Schools of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province and Kota Banda Aceh (city of Banda Aceh) education department.
This will be the first school for a model community school complex, ultimately to include an elementary (SD) and a middle school (SMP). It will also serve as a catalyst for a wider “center of academic excellence” encompassing two other secondary schools on the UNSYIAH campus that will be a model other schools can duplicate. The USINDO SMU will educate high school students from the communities adjacent to the university that were totally flattened. The facility will also be a laboratory school attached to UNSYIAH’s College of Teacher Training and Education where student teachers from all over Aceh province will have an opportunity to practice teaching and improve their classroom skills under the guidance of master teachers.
JIS Cares has pledged $ 60,000 towards the establishment of a school library within the USINDO SMU. As the design and the contents of the library takes shape we believe that our pledge to specifically support a school library will further facilitate a link with the Monica Averhoff Foundation http://www.littletreasurebooks.com/support.htm and the dedication of Monica’s parents to nurture a love for reading and writing amongst Acehnese school children.
In addition we have pledged to sponsor further capacity building projects and STS (school-to-school) programs in each school. These STS programs will include teacher training, inter-school visits by faculty, JIS engineers and consultants, and hopefully student exchanges. This component of support has been generously sponsored by Schlumberger, North Sea division. Details of the USINDO project can be found on the website http://www.usindo.org/
We will continue to closely monitor the construction of our adopted projects and continue to report to our donors and constituent community on the progress of the projects through JIS newsletters, alumni bulletins, and our website.
In closing I acknowledge the very valuable service and contributions of School Council rep. Rita Swyter to our task force and also welcome Maura Kwik to our group. Maura has volunteered to replace Rita and act as the School Council rep on JIS Cares. Once again I offer my thanks to you for your attention to the plight of the children in Aceh and Central Java and also for your support, both moral and monetary, to the projects that the task force has chosen to adopt.
Steve Money
JIS Cares Taskforce Chair
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