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Australia's Indonesian Neighbors Suffering - After the interim tsunami relief how we can help on an ongoing basis?
Indonesia's tsunami victims have born the brunt of the Asian tsunami disaster in December 2004. Tsunami aid and tsunami information is helping, but full tsunami relief and recovery will be a very long painful process for the victims. Our tsunami appeal is for you to help tsunami victims in more ways than through tsunami donations by making people aware of and by spending in tsunami affected economies.
On 26th Dec 2004 the Asian tsunami devastated the coastlines of the Indian Ocean region leaving hundreds of thousands dead, missing and miserable survivors with their families and homes and possessions and whole villages wiped out and requiring tsunami aid. Tsunami information has revealed that the worst effected country was Indonesia which needs the most sustained tsunami relief.
Although the humanitarian crisis is horrific the impact on employment, tourism and the regional economies will be long term.
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has said that the Asian tsunami is the largest disaster the UN has had to deal with and it could take 10 years of tsunami relief for Asian nations to fully recover from the devastating Asian tsunamis.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has urged the international community to address the serious unemployment issue in the countries stricken by the Asian tsunami as well as tsunami aid. The ILO provided tsunami information to the World Conference on Disaster Reduction that around 600,000 people in the most affected regions in Indonesia may have lost their sole source of livelihood. The unemployment rate in the tsunami disaster hit provinces could be more than 30 percent, surging drastically from the already high 6.8 percent before the disaster, the ILO told the World Conference on Disaster Reduction and tsunami aid.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said that "out of the appalling tragedy of the tsunami disaster has emerged an opportunity to build a new future". Australia has pledged substantial tsunami relief money. Strained political ties between Australia and Indonesia have improved steadily since the nations came together in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. However Australians have historically always been closely tied to the Indonesian peoples through trade and tourism as neighbors and these two disasters have brought the human bonds even closer with our neighbors.
Sustainable Tsunami Relief
As a result of tsunami information Australians have given generously to the tsunami aid disaster relief appeal but besides immediate tsunami relief funds there are two other important things they can consider:-
(1) Spend your next holidays in Indonesia.
The hotels and the tourist facilities in some areas that haven't been too badly damaged and other unaffected areas of the country want tourists to continue coming. After all the tsunami disaster is a coastal disaster and if you go 1 or 2 kilometers inland you don't see the effects. So lets go Back to Bali. Click here for tsunami information on unaffected areas.
(2) Ask your retailer to supply Indonesian goods, and buy them when you can.
Much of Indonesia's fishing industry which sustained many, many, families will take ages to recover. Particularly due to the capital cost of acquiring fishing boats. However their craft manufacturing industry which has been waning in recent years can quickly absorb more labour and provide cash into the local economies that flows through to all of the.
Akcent Giftware have been long term importers from the wood carving cottage craftsmen of Indonesia. They are excellent craftsmen and a surge in craft manufacturing can be an important contributor to the devastated local economy. Yes, we are asking this for our own commercial success but we would also like to assist our friendly neighboring peoples. So please provide some tsunami information and ask your local retailer to carry some Indonesian Craft goods such as our carved animal figurines and woodwares (Catalogue linked above).
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