Appeal Target: US$ 1,377,168
Balance Requested: US$ 1,247,053
Geneva, 8 January 2009
Dear Colleagues,
Since a devastating earthquake struck Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces in May 2006, members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, Church World Service (CWS), Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU), and Yayasan Tanggul Bencana di Indonesia (YTBI) in Indonesia have been providing relief and rehabilitation assistance to people in affected villages through ACT appeal programme (ASID 61), which closed at the end of November 2007. While assistance provided to date has saved lives and enabled many people to advance on the long road to full recovery, the external ACT evaluation of the ASID61 programme and the members' own re-assessment of the situation in the affected communities, revealed gaps in assistance in some geographical areas, sectors and to some vulnerable affected communities. This region faces a high level of environmental hazards, including floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and drought, leaving many people's livelihoods in the earthquake-affected areas uncertain or highly vulnerable.
Complementary assistance is needed, with a focus on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), to ensure the sustainability of livelihood recovery, and to strengthen the community preparedness and longer-term resilience. ACT members have identified further needs in some of the villages for adequate water supplies, sanitation and hygiene promotion. Also identified as areas in need of support are: the further development and strengthening of community-based organizations; health posts providing village-level health services, livelihood activities and disaster preparedness; and the involvement of local schools, teachers, children and government to strengthen local networks for better community-based preparedness and management of disasters.
This appeal is being revised to include slight changes to the YEU projects under ASID82. In order to ensure transparency, accountability and also facilitate administration of the projects, YEU has been requested by a back donor and auditors to separate the back donor funded activities that are taking place in parallel with other ASID82 activities and treat these activities as being funded bilaterally (outside the appeal). Consequently, the number of villages under the YEU project is reduced from 17 to 14. As there are still some important activities in the other three villages that are not covered by the back donor funds, the budget for these villages had been adjusted to ensure there is no risk of double funding. This is mainly work in schools and puskesmas (programmes 2 and 3 in the YEU proposal).