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Three weeks after the devastating earthquake and
tsunami struck, aid of some form is reaching most of the estimated one
million people who lost their homes and livelihoods in Indonesia's Aceh
province. Relief agencies are beginning to focus on the welfare of
hundreds of thousands of children who survived, but were left without
schools and, in some cases, without parents.
It is early morning in Lamgugop village, a community of about 1,000
people lying on the outskirts
of Banda Aceh. A hundred or so children are playing in the
village's small mosque.
A gang of boys about 10-years old sing a song at the top of their
lungs, while a group of girls sitting nearby join in more demure fashion.
Quieter kids are playing board
games, while a group of teen-age girls giggles over a private joke.
Three weeks after the tsunami smashed through their homes, leaving only
the foundations, the children of Lamgugop are enjoying being children
again, if only for a moment.
Afriyani, a bright young woman of about 14-year-old wearing a beige headscarf, says she lost 30
members of her extended family in the disaster. She is especially worried
about the effect on her education.
"I am very sad because my school is destroyed," she said.
Afriyani is in the last year of middle school and she is afraid she
will miss the examinations needed to pass into high school.
Her friend, Laili Fitriah, lost her grandmother and dozens of family
members. She is afraid the water will return and get her. Laili says when
she is afraid she prays to God that the disaster will not happen again.
Dian Fitri is a 21-year-old college student who is studying accounting.
She says she volunteered to help here because sometimes it is difficult
for the children to speak to outsiders.
Ms. Fitri, who herself is missing several family members, says the
children are still traumatized
by the disaster, and many are terrified that the water will return. But
she says they are relaxing more now. She is trying to help them forget by
engaging them in activities and conversation.
The program in
Lamgugop is one of the first to be organized by the Save the Children aid
group. Coordinator Christine Knudsen says right now children need a chance
to have some normal activities.
"The children have had their whole worlds turned upside down, literally
and figuratively, and [the activities are] helping them to bring sense to
it, helping them to sort through the experience and helping them just to
relax so they can begin to process that," she said.
She says the activities help workers spot children who may need special
attention, and provide an introduction to parents who will be vital to
their children's readjustment. Afterwards, she says, they will introduce
more structured activities, like group discussions, and those individuals
needing therapy will be passed on to psychological teams.
She says all the agencies working with children are aware of reports
that child traffickers may be
seeking to take advantage of orphaned children.
"We certainly have not been able to confirm any reports," said
Christine Knudsen. "Our important thing right now is to support families
so that they can help their children, so that they can look after their
children, and so that we reduce that risk as much as possible."
She says her organization has so far registered about 60 children
without families and is looking for their relatives. But she says an even
larger number of parents, about 140, are trying to trace missing children.
The agency is working with donors to re-open the hundreds of schools
that were damaged or destroyed by the tsunami. The goal is to send as many
children as possible back to school by the end of the month.
Save the Children and similar groups are also shipping in books and
supplies for the schools, and are planning to train teachers to replace
the estimated 1,500 who were killed in the disaster. | 
