Photo 7

This is Dachlan Jalil, Chief of Kuala Tripa village. He lives with his wife and two sons and is proud of his communities involvement in rebuilding their lives.

Dachlan was in the village when the tsunami came, and remembers that the “waves were over two metres high. They destroyed half of the houses in this village and 76 people were killed, mostly children”.

Dachlan became chief of the village about 14 months after the tsunami. “The people here saw that I was involved in many community and youth activities and they chose me as their local leader. I am still young but I listen to the people and they all know my work in the village,”

Dachlan says that people in the village were happy to rebuild with JRS because they were focused on getting the community involved, “they supplied materials, and, where possible, things were produced locally, this way we were able to keep more money in the community.”

In the Kuala Tripa village, many people were farmers in the wet season and fishermen in the dry season. But since the tsunami the land and soil has not been good for cultivating, and boats and fishing equipment were destroyed, hence both sources of income are no longer reliable.

Dachlan believes that for future livelihood security they need help to cultivate the oil palm, “this can bring good money to our people and a better future.”

Bottom: The spread of oil palm is being upheld as a panacea for the economic woes of many poor communities in Aceh. Large scale deforestation, pollution and monocultures are some of the challenges that Caritas Australia is working with communities to navigate in Indonesia to ensure that a sustainable solution can be sought to the problems of debilitating poverty.