Training center offers hope for Acehnese children

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sun, 06/11/2006 2:48 PM  |  Life

Kanis Dursin, The Jakarta Post, Trieng Gading

It was about 10:30 in the morning. The sun above the coastal town of Trieng Gading, about a four-hour drive east of the provincial capital Banda Aceh, was unleashing its searing heat.

But local residents, including religious leaders and military officers, as well as administration officials, were not disturbed by the scorching sun, continuing to flock to a roadside tent next to a small mosque, where over 100 children were eagerly waiting.

""Welcome to the groundbreaking ceremony of the Trieng Gading Fishery Training Center and Dormitory,"" the master of ceremonies said 10 minutes before the ceremony was to officially kick off at 11 a.m.

Trieng Gading was one of the areas hardest hit in North Aceh by the December 2004 tsunami, and the training center was just one of the reconstruction projects in the area.

The early start seemed to reflect local residents' strong determination to put behind the tragedy which killed over 300 people in the town and over 130,000 across the province.

""We hope the training center will help children orphaned by the tsunami so that they can stand on their own,"" Ismail Achmad, secretary of Trieng Gading district, said in a speech.

The unprecedented catastrophe left some 400 children orphaned in Trieng Gading. They are now living with relatives and count on donations to survive and continue their education.

While their number may be relatively small compared to the town's population of 19,000, they can prove to be a heavy burden on residents, most of whom are farmers and fishermen struggling to recover not only from the tsunami but also the three-decade armed conflict between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Ismail also hoped that the training center, which is funded by the United Kingdom's Davis Langdon and Seah and will be managed by the Rahmania Foundation, would help improve the quality of human resources in Trieng Gading and surrounding areas.

""The quality of education has worsened drastically due to the (armed) conflict,"" he said.

Trieng Gading was considered a GAM stronghold in North Aceh and armed encounters between government troops and GAM members were commonplace since the rebels declared their struggle for independence for the resource-rich province in 1976.

The conflict, which claimed more than 10,000 lives, ended only last year when the Indonesian government and GAM signed the Helsinki memorandum of understanding.

Under the memorandum of understanding, signed Aug. 15, GAM agreed to drop its demand for independence and destroy its weapons, while the government agreed to allow GAM to set up its own political party and to withdraw troops from the province.

""With the memorandum of understanding, children can go back to school, while their parents can earn a living without fear for their safety,"" Ismail said.

Meanwhile, Rahmania Foundation chairman Abdul Rahman Abbas said the center would train Acehnese to allow them to enter the fishing industry.

""The center will recruit high school graduates from all over the province, with priority given to, but not exclusively, tsunami victims,"" Rahman told The Jakarta Post.

Sitting on a 400-square-meter lot, construction on the two-story center is expected to finish later this year.

Rahman said the center, which can accommodate up to 40 people, would provide training for fishermen and their family members who were affected by the tsunami.

""The training will be in fish breeding, fish processing in order to give added value to the product or ship-making,"" he said, adding that any group wishing to offer fishery-related training could use the center.

Rahman, who has been active in running vocational schools in Aceh, invited local people and experts to help design programs for the training center and dormitory.

""We have six months to design the program for the center,"" he said.

When completed, the center would be the third vocational school Rahman and his foundation are running in Aceh. Since 2001, Rahman has run a training center in Cunda, also in North Aceh. The center has so far trained 80 people -- 60 as automotive and motorcycle mechanics, and 20 in refrigerator repair.

In the long run, Rahman said, the Cunda Training Center would only offer training in motorcycle repair, while training for refrigerator repair would be moved to Blang Panjang and automotive repair to Bireuen, both in North Aceh.

Funded by Gift to Asia, an organization based in California, the U.S., the Blang Panjang training center is still under construction, while the Bireuen automotive training center is still being designed and funded by Deutsche Bank.

Rahman, who is also offering scholarships to poor children affected by the tsunami, believes that Aceh needs more vocational schools than universities or other higher learning institutions.

And since the tsunami, Rahmania has been looking for sponsors to provide Acehnese children with vocational training. The foundation sent dozens of Acehnese children to Malaysia last year and 25 children to a vocational training center in Malang, East Java, this year.

""Not all Acehnese can afford to go to university. Some simply do not have the (financial) ability to study in university and for them we have to provide vocational schools,"" he said.

As the construction of the Trieng Gading center continues full tilt, Rahman now wonders where he will get the money needed to buy training facilities. The Davis Langdon and Seah UK, he said, only provides funds for the building's construction, while other training equipment has to be provided by the foundation.

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