Tuesday, January 18, 2005

1,700 educators missing in Banda Aceh province

Members of the Education International Delegation meet with teacher union leaders in Banda Aceh.

Today I'm in Jakarta, Indonesia, a city of about 18 million people. It's as big as New York state and as modern as can be. I leave tomorrow for Sri Lanka. I'm here on a relief mission funded by Education International, surveying the damage and working with local educators to determine how best to use funds being collected back in the states from NYSUT members and staffers, as well as funds being collected by NYSUT's national affiliate, the AFT.

Every penny collected through our "Tsunami Relief" efforts will be concentrated towards getting kids back to school.

The Banda Aceh province

I spent all day yesterday and this morning in Banda Aceh, the city hit the hardest by the tsunami. It's an old medieval city of sultans and it sits just on the ocean.

When we arrived at the airport, the windows were covered with pictures of the lost people. We toured all over. It's a city of 440,000 people. 100,000 are missing or dead. That's one quarter of the population missing or dead. At least a third of the city has been destroyed.

The wave that hit the city was 72km wide, 4 stories high and traveled 6km inland. One survivor we met described it like a giant with the top of the wave forming a head and hands. When the water came in, it was going 100 miles per hour. It washed all this material ahead of itself. Then when the water receded, it took all of the material back - uprooted trees, cars and telephone poles.

The area is just leveled. You may see one house standing in the middle of an entire neighborhood. There are all these pools of standing salt water maybe a foot or two deep.

Kids and teachers missing

While touring the province, we stayed in the house of Amudy Ae, the president of the teacher's union. The union has about 50,000 members in the Aceh province. The Minister of Education told us on Monday that 1,700 teachers were lost just in Banda Aceh.

One school had 100 kids in it when the wave came through. None of the kids has been heard from since.

More than 50% of the school buildings in Indonesia were destroyed by the tsunami, leaving 140,000 elementary school students and 20,000 high school students with nowhere to study.

Before the tsunami, the union was building a new headquarters that had not opened yet. We went by and it was surrounded by water. All of the equipment, wiring and furniture has to be replaced. They're using the president's house as the union office.

I asked what NYSUT could do to help, maybe an adopt-a-school program for our local unions.

They asked us about building houses.

On the road

When we get to Sri Lanka it could be difficult for me to check in. Satellite communications have been a problem. I'll report more when I can.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Our union delegation

I'm traveling with a small group of education union leaders including Fred Van Leeuwen, Education International general secretary; Aloysius Mathews, EI chief regional coordinator for Asia; Mamounata Cisse, the deputy secretary general of ICFTU, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions; Katsuhiko Sato representing the ICFU public employees sector; Mr. P. Aronasalan with the International Metal Workers; and a young lady who works for Aloysius Mathews, Chusnul Savitri, she does everything.

NEXT: Ground zero

NYSUT President Tom Hobart traveled to South Asia in January 2005 with a select contingent of education union leaders to deliver much-needed aid and messages of support to teachers, students and their families in areas hit hardest by the December 2004 tsunami. The trip was funded entirely by Education International. Tom represented NYSUT's national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, on the mission.