Bustanul Aitam Orphanage

From time to time, it is not easy to raise fund for the orphanage kids from conflict victims in Aceh. Before 2005, when the conflict was still going on, people reluctant to give donation for fearing misuse of the money, especially for the rebellion purpose. At that time there was people asking donation for building mosque, orphanage, and other social activities that part or the entire money end up for rebellion purpose or personal misuse.

It is also difficult for donators to visit or to verify the use of the money they donate since the access to the region is very limited. It was martial law, where any movement of people – especially from outside Aceh – strictly monitors by military.

After the tsunami disasters in December 2004 and Aceh open up again, I see the chance to revive fund raising campaign. Hoping that many donors come to Aceh will see the reality and decide to help all the orphanage kids, irrespective the cause of their misfortune.

But that is not the case. Anywhere I appeal, they keep asking: are the kids from tsunami victim? I honestly say only few of them, which is 5 out of 60 kids. The rest is mostly from conflict victims.

So majority the donors refuse to provide support, reasoning that their mandate is only to support tsunami victims’ kids. Save the Children and WFP do provide support to all the kids, in term of foods donation. The same goes to study kits donation from UNICEF/China that distribute to all primary school kids. I also find a way to reason with my friend and get donation from PT Indo Pacific Sheraton, Benny Syaaf (of Nahdatul Ulama), and Leela Young (USA).

But until now, the same argument is applied: donors only provide support to tsunami victim’s kids. I agree that their mandate is to support the tsunami victims. But the kids, irrespective their cause of misfortune, must be given priority. And donor must see the problem sensibly where in Eastern Coast of Aceh majority of the orphanage is from conflict victims, not tsunami. For example, in Ulim region, we have 250 orphan kids, but only 6 of them from tsunami victims. In other orphanage whose the committee met me, the same condition apply: around no more than 10% of the kids is from tsunami victims, the rest is majority from conflict victims.

So for the program in Eastern Coast of Aceh, rather than looking for tsunami kids and then decide not to support them because of “difficult to make a very small scatter program” why don’t they widen the cover for all the orphan kids? All these kids have the same right, which is to live with proper room, food, health, and education for their future.

Relevant posts:

1. donation from my best friend


2. Thanks for your generous donation


3. donation from Beydoun family