WEEKLY SUMMARY

Field Operations:
Daily eye camps have been held in TVRI spontaneous camp and Lampinung camp benefiting a total of 247 people thus far. The camps are jointly conducted by AMURT and a three member RAM (Remote Area Medical) team of USA. The Indonesian TV, LCTI did a filming and interview of our eye camp in the TVRI Camp which has a population of 7000 displaced persons.
Didi Manika gave counseling to nine women this week. Didi will now stay in Neuheun village from where her counseling work will be facilitated.
Didi Hema and Sister Soma have been conducting interviews and doing video filming for livelihood assessment and promotion of AMURT/AMURTEL respectively.
A nutritious food distribution and games was carried out in Neuheun benefiting 150 children. When we asked the kids whether they liked the food, they said that they were so pleased with the change of diet. They came back for second and third helpings saving some for their siblings who missed out on the fun.
Dada Devashuddhananda saw another 5 patients in the Rumah Sakit Fakina hospital this week and has been facilitating the eye camps for the RAM team.
Rapid surveys have been done in Nusa, Lampinung and Lamasan Kling villages, all in Aceh Besar with the view to working collaboratively with the tsunami victims to rehabilitate their homes and their brick factories.
We met representatives of UNHCR, UNDP, World Vision and GTZ and submitted our Jr. High School proposal to AusAid and Food for the Hungry International as we attempt to procure funding for the projects we have assessed.
Brother Ananda Deva has made a 2 hour video filming of our second phase relief operations (January 20-28). Dada Nirmalkrsnananda has made two PowerPoint presentations of phase two of the relief operation.
Dadas Surya Prakash and Dinakar and Didi Hema attended a one day workshop in Disaster Relief Management conducted by Global Relief, wherein they learned the basics of disaster management and rapid response.

Over-All Situation:
The relief operation is now fully in the second phase of recovery. Many international agencies are awaiting government guidelines about where houses and schools can be reconstructed before embarking on large scale projects. This gives us some time in which to survey more villages and see where we may be able to prepare new project proposals.
As of today the total strength of AMURT and AMURTEL is 21 volunteers! Each volunteer has been placed in a different relief sector (i.e. food, shelter, education, child protection, etc.) for the smooth facilitation of work. They attend the various weekly UN coordinated meetings of these sectors.

Our Needs:
• Skilled carpenters, handyman, house builders
• Child Animators, Psychologists
• Midwives
• Office Assistant
• Cash


Note: Volunteers are welcome but for non-Indonesian speakers they must commit for a minimum of two months. In the case of Indonesian speakers they must commit for a minimum of two weeks.

Dada Shiilabhadrananda, Banda Aceh