Great News from Indonesia!
We are so pleased that the work of Jakarta Mapmaker Marco Kusumawijaya and colleagues in using post-tsunami community participatory restoration techniques has been received an important award – Dubai International Award for Best Practices 2008!

Marco has written the project description below. One year after the tsunami, on December 26, 2005, the Banda Aceh Green Map was published (linked at the bottom), and their rebuilding work continued. Involved in Green Mapmaking since 2001, he and his colleagues across the country have published a great diversity of maps, websites and related resources that celebrate biodiversity, green living, the rich cultural heritage and disaster prevention as seen at GreenMap.or.id. If you would like to help the Indonesian Green Map Hub (see the impressive map they have linked to their website's upper right), please contact Elanto Wijoyono at joeyakarta [a] greenmap [.] or[.] id- or contact us to help you contribute to their work! In this photo, Marco is plaid in front, and co-chair Elanto is in white, find some history here, too.

Award Winning Work in Banda Aceh

The approach that we pursued is that the people who survived the tsunami in 23 villages are the owner-clients who decide what they want in reconstructing their villages. We were their assistants with our limited respective specialised skills, and limited resources. Together we tried to integrate all aspects of reconstruction: economic recovery, shelter and settlement planning and construction, clean water and sanitation provision, alternative healing, organic recovery of farming, social re-organising, cultural and arts revitalisation, etc.

A Green Map was made to help "remember" places of significance.

One of many interesting things is that the people managed to re-use timber salvaged from tsunami for window and door frames for more than 400 houses. Those are the best hardwood in the region, used before in old houses.

In total we built 3,330 houses, 2 mosques, 23 community centers, a couple of elementary schools, all the roads in and surrounding the villages, some dykes, etc. We managed to install just a few photovoltaic panels worth 25,000 USD donated by GreenPeace.

The areas where we worked were among the hardest hit by the tsunami. The survivors were only 25 % of the total population before tsunami. But, the number of households remains almost the same. Every household has lost one, two, three, four, or even more members. According to the UN-HABITAT's survey of hundreds of samples by different organisations, the houses that we built rank the highest in technical quality and owner's satisfaction.

We think that the most important factor in the success of the reconstruction is the strong will of the survivors, and their social capital that gradually recovered. We just channeled this energy. They are remarkable people, when you know how to respect them not as victims, but as survivors of the tsunami. Many of them built the houses with their own hands, although they had the freedom and the means to hire others to do it for them. Some of them learnt the skills to build a house for the first time. All of them endured not only the pain of losing their beloved ones (most of their bodies were never found), but also the patience and hard work of rebuilding their homes, villages, communities, and lives. They are still doing so...

best,
Marco