Indonesians plagued by the devastating earthquake that ravaged the southern Yogyakarta Province last month still have a long way for recovery.

Many charitable groups working with the quake victims have moved into what is being called phase two where the need for medical attention has declined significantly and the need for rebuilding is desperate.

Putting people back on the right track is the goal of ACT (Aksi Cepat Tanggap), a Muslim organization based in Jakarta with an office in Yogyakarta.

After concluding their emergency efforts on June 5, the organization has started the building of 45 houses.

The first area of experimentation with the house-building program is an area of Yogyakarta called Pleret, one of the hardest hit districts.

The program will benefit those ACT cared for following the disaster at their emergency response camps which encompasses up to 5000 families (13,000 people).

ACT seeks to provide a house for each of the families and projects an ending date of the program five years from the start, meaning a completion of 1000 houses a year.

The 6.3-magnitude temblor killed 5,800 people, injured up to 40,000 people and destroyed or damaged almost 600,000 houses in the heavily-populated Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces on Java island.

Many of the flattened or damaged houses were built of brick and concrete and featured little reinforcement to resist the shockwaves of the quake.

Costly

One of the 45 houses ACT is building

The long term effort is centered on setting the victims of the disaster on the road to normalization, including permanent homes.

The unfortunate aspect of this phase is its cost.

Delivering food, medicines and temporary shelters is relatively easy and affordable for most organizations of any size, but this is not permanent and its nature is only relief.

Each of the 5000 houses ACT plans to build will cost about 49, 500, 000 rupiah (roughly 5,500 USD).

The Muslim organization is, therefore, seeking both local and international sponsors for the house-rebuilding program.

Efri S. Bahri, the General Manager of the Program, asks communities in the West to try to sponsor at least one house if not more.

"We ask those reading this article at Islamonline.net to sponsor one house, two houses, maybe up to ten houses or a hundred houses, get the community involved in this drive please," he said.

ACT has been coordinating with the government, which has not yet acted on any promise, and the effort is almost completely in the hands of local and international NGOs.

Team Work

Men who lost their homes are rebuilding them with ACT help.

The fact is that these houses are as modest as the houses before them and the materials that are being used are often the same materials from the house that was destroyed.

In many cases, those who lost their homes are the very same people erecting them.

"The women cook and the men work on the houses, it's a team effort," said Joko, one of ACT's monitors at the site.

The house-building effort has helped the local economies as all the materials are acquired locally and ACT pays the people building their own homes a wage so that they can maintain their livelihood.

Fatima, who broke her back during the earthquake and cannot walk, has been selected to receive one of the first houses.

Fatima, who lost her twelve year old son to the quake, was washing her clothes early in the morning outside the house when she felt the tremor.

She started yelling for her son to leave the house, but it was too late. The wall tumbled down crushing him under the bricks.

When Joko tried to comfort her about her son, she calmly responds: "We are from Allah and we will return to Him, he is in a good place, inshAllah."

Source: Islamonline