Business Cooperative Opens Doors After Tsunami

by Gita Modgil

In the city of Meulaboh in Aceh, Indonesia, the monument of the Achenese freedom fighter Teuku Umar was destroyed by the December 2004 tsunami waves that rushed more than half a mile inland, stripping the land of trees, vegetation, homes, buildings and people. In a span of 15 minutes, more than 166,000 Acehnese died or were lost, never to be found.

The monument has fallen, but Teuku Umar's strength and resilience still runs in the blood of the Acehnese, who smile even when all has been lost. Ambit, from the coastal village of Pangong in Meulaboh, is one among hundreds of thousands of optimistic and persevering Acehnese who have rebuilt their lives brick by brick.

The disaster killed his three children, decimated his home and destroyed his joinery business, leaving him and his wife lost, childless and economically dependent.

"I was so traumatized I could not move for days," said Ambit. "I thought my life was over."

A year after the tsunami, Ambit has successfully restarted his joinery business with grants assistance from the livelihood program of Catholic Relief Services. He is now part of a 42-member joinery cooperative, which the members have named after their hero, Teuku Umar.

CRS staff on the ground initiated this livelihoods program in coordination with the Government Agency for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives. Prior to the tsunami, Meulaboh was unfamiliar with the concept of cooperatives, only one joinery cooperative existed. Now with organizational and financial assistance from CRS, there are five cooperatives comprising 163 workshops and indirectly benefiting over 1630 joinery workers.

"The cooperative system is very convenient for us, the process and the price can be monitored, the distribution of work orders is equitable," said Ali Usman, another member of the Teuku Umar Cooperative. "Now everyone makes a profit and it's not just the bigger joinery workshops that get orders."

For CRS, it is important to support the local economy by purchasing supplies locally, hiring most staff from the affected region, and using local contractors. Our home building and infrastructure programs draw on the labor and skills of these joinery cooperatives to supply doors, windows, frames and bricks for permanent housing projects, vendor tables for markets, and furniture for offices and other projects.

"The first order we got was to build doors and windows for 50 permanent CRS houses," said Ambit. "That order set things in motion, and now we are receiving orders from other organizations. We can now stand on our own feet again and are no longer dependent on other people".

Gita Modgil is a media and communications officer for Catholic Relief Services. Formerly a radio show host and journalist from Mumbai, India, Gita is based in Aceh Province, Indonesia.