Spotlight: Emergency Preparedness in Indonesia
With the fourth largest population in the world, the 220 million inhabitants of Indonesia are at great risk when disaster strikes. And unfortunately, since 2004 this country has weathered countless crises, including the tsunami of late December 2004, the Jogjakarta earthquake in May 2006, the Java tsunami in July 2006, and most recently severe flooding this past December.
Staff in Indonesia from Save the Children U.S., and the Internal Save the Children Alliance began intense preparedness efforts following the 2004 tsunami in an effort to be better able to respond to the needs of children and their families in the future. The team developed a comprehensive Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan. This plan details every piece of a response from decision making in emergencies to staff secondment as well as key areas of programmatic responses. The process of developing the plan enabled staff from all Save the Children Alliance members to think through the issues and develop a proposed response prior to the emergency.
Emergency Response Teams were formed and participated in several trainings that outlined the typical emergency response structure and decision making. A three-day workshop was conducted where staff participated in simulations in areas of communication (reporting, dealing with media, communicating with children and their families during emergencies), rapid distribution of essential goods and child protection.
During the preparedness process, the Indonesia Country Office decided that given the relevance and frequency of disasters in Indonesia, they needed to be able to respond with lifesaving interventions within the first 48 hours of a major emergency. In order to do this, they had to pre-position the following key supplies:
- 3,000 household kits;
- 6,000 hygiene kits;
- 3,000 family tarps and plastic mats ;
- 12 safe play area tents and cooperative game kits;
- 45 school tents.
Then, Came December 22, 2006
On December 22, Indonesia was once again adversely affected by a natural disaster, this time severe flooding. In the first 24 hours following these floods, emergency response team members were deployed to the region and relief began. Save the Children:
- distributed pre-positioned emergency supplies to the IDPs. The warehouse storing the supplies was convenient as it was a 3-4 hour drive from the floods;
- signed a contract with the World Food Programme to distribute emergency rations to displaced and affected populations;
- procured drinking water and established emergency health posts;
- launched the response while many decision makers were out of the country (as the floods occurred around the Christmas holiday) due to the process detailed in the emergency preparedness and response plan. During this time, staff took on roles they would not normally fill but quickly adapted to these new roles and established clear communication lines between them.
The Way Forward
The staff in Indonesia are committed to preparedness efforts and simulations moving forward to continue assisting children and their families following emergencies. Additional pre-positioned emergency relief stocks are needed, as well as continued emergency response trainings in security, first aid, best practices in conducting a rapid assessment, simple assessment tools that can be easily used and key programmatic issues such as the nutritional needs of children during emergencies.
