Keeping In Touch

September 19, 2005 —The World Bank and other partners have launched a new initiative in Aceh to help keep survivors of last December’s tsunami in touch with the reconstruction process.

It’s a bi-weekly reconstruction newsletter – titled Ceureumen – which now goes out as a supplement every other Saturday in Aceh’s main local daily newspaper, Serambi Indonesia – which is also distributed to people displaced by the tsunami, now living in camps and barracks.

The concept behind the newsletter is simple. Ceureumen means mirror in the Acehnese language. And in line with that, the newsletter is designed to reflect the needs of tsunami survivors as well as the progress of reconstruction.

Bridging a Gap

In a bid to bridge any information gaps between local people and those involved in the reconstruction process, each edition of Ceureumen is focusing on a particular issue in the rebuilding of Aceh.

The first edition of Ceureumen to hit the streets ran housing as its main story, centering on the issue of filling the huge demand for housing and land titling. Subsequent issues have focused on education and agriculture – how non government organizations are helping farmers convert their paddy fields to other uses, since the fields, flooded by the tsunami, can no longer be used to grow rice.

And in view of the recent signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement, the latest issue is a special edition on “Peace in Aceh”. It features stories on the reintegration of ex-combatants and how those ex-combatants will be integrated into the post-tsunami reconstruction process.

Ceureumen has also profiled inspiring people – such as the village head who has taken a lead in the reconstruction process and the story of a fisherman who travels by boat along the coast to help transport relief items.

And in a bit to encourage monitoring and transparency, the newsletter also features a regular page on anti-corruption.

But in a region which suffered devastating losses as a result of the tsunami, the Ceureumen newsletter is also designed to offer people some lighthearted entertainment, with each edition featuring crossword puzzles and even jokes.

The newsletter is also designed to do more than just provide information. It’s intended as a venue for local people to air their views, through regular columns such as “Tanya Jawab”. It offers readers the chance to send in questions, while another section, “Suara Rakyat keci” gives people the chance to be reporters by sending in their ideas and stories of reconstruction.

Positive Feedback

While still relatively new, Ceureumen has already had a positive response. Readers have been writing in asking for the newsletter to be longer than its current eight pages. Others have written in with their views on the reconstruction process in Aceh. Some have also written poems on corruption and the tsunami.

The idea of reaching out to people does just not stop with the newsletter. The team behind Ceureumen works with Internews, an international non government organization specializing in humanitarian media coverage. It produces a regular program on Aceh reconstruction called Peunegah Aceh, which is broadcast over a network of radio stations throughout Aceh. Once every two weeks, the Ceureumen team has a 20-minute slot in which they invite guests and journalists to do a talk show based on the cover story of the latest issue.

Journalism Training

And as part of the efforts to reach as many people as possible, Ceureumen has a small dedicated editorial team of five local journalists. The team, with freelance contributors based in various parts of Aceh, is traveling throughout the area collecting human interest stories from within the communities. University students have also been invited to work as reporters. Just two weeks ago, they completed a basic journalism training course provided by the Ceureumen team.

As well as Serambi’s normal subscription and newsstand sales, the newsletter is also reaching people displaced by the tsunami through a project of the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, which distributes free copies of Serambi every Saturday to the main living centers throughout Aceh.

In addition, Ceureumen is distributed to areas less accessible to Serambi, via facilitators for the World Bank's Kecamatan Development Project (KDP) and Support for Disadvantaged Areas Project (SPADA) and other aid workers in remote areas.

Ceureumen is funded by the multi-donor initiative, Decentralization Support Facility (DSF), which is supported by the World Bank, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Netherlands.