Red Cross Urges Awareness: Indonesia

The Red Cross have been the stalwart in assisting those in need for over a Century. During war times they are there and, during peace times whenever there is a natural disaster.

The Indonesian Red Cross is developing disaster mitigation projects in five provinces to help increase local people's awareness of potential catastrophes.

They have been working in 27 villages in nine regencies to guide and mentor local people to be more creative in handling disasters. The projects were carried out in South Sulawesi, West Sumatra, Lampung, South Kalimantan and North Sulawesi which are prone to natural disasters.

The Red Cross has guided and mentored about 20 volunteers from villages and the trainers would remain in these areas for five to 10 years before moving on to other places.

People in Wajo regency in South Sulawesi had learned how to build a structure of poles aimed at stopping water hyacinth. Water hyacinth roots can ruin the walls of houses during flooding if their growth is not controlled properly.

The Red Cross also set up a program to help prevent malaria outbreaks. In Sanggi village in Lampung province people have spread Nila fish eggs in empty fish ponds to prevent malaria eggs from multiplying.

The Denmark Red Cross provided about 75 percent of financial aid needed to fund the disaster mitigation projects. It will cost about Rp 1.6 billion annually for each regency to carry out the projects.
Admirably the Red Cross are involved in training programs about farm development and distributing free seeds and tools to assist those already struck my natural disasters.