After the Tsunami, Rebuilding Lives and Livelihoods

December 2006 Update: "Two Years On" Special Report  

On December 26, 2004, the people of Aceh, Indonesia, already suffering from years of civil strife, saw their world turn upside down, first by violent tremors and then by cataclysmic waves. Whole families, homes and schools, farms and fisheries and entire communities vanished.

The International Rescue Committee had been working in Aceh since 2001 as part of the CARDI consortium, providing much needed humanitarian support to communities displaced by the civil conflict.  When the tsunami struck, we immediately dispatched emergency teams to join our staff already on the ground aiding survivors.

In the year following the disaster, the IRC reached 153,000 people with safe drinking water, treated 58,000 people through mobile health clinics, helped more than10,000 children return to school and enabled 23,000 people to regain a secure income to support their families.

Throughout 2006, we have helped more than 40 hard-hit communities rebuild and revitalize their economies, supporting them as they design and manage their own recovery projects.

We also work with local organizations and government agencies to increase the quality of education, improve the health of mothers and children, reduce the vulnerability of tsunami survivors to water-borne disease, and reconstruct vital water systems, roads and markets.