Yanti

She is Sumaryanti. Call her Yanti. I met her two weeks ago at Erasmus Huis, Kuningan Jakarta in the launching of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) book: Stories of Hope: Back Alive. This book contains 29 stories of disable people who received psychosocial support from PMI.

Yanti came from Yogyakarta with Kartini, a PMI’s psychosocial support programme (PSP) volunteer. “We just arrived last night, I’m actually still tired,” she admitted. But Yanti couldn’t hide her enthusiasm about the event. PMI invited Yanti to share her experience as a survivor from the disaster and how she accepted the condition she couldn’t avoid.

Yanti, accompanied by Kartini, is sharing her experiences

Before the Yogyakarta earthquake, Yanti worked as a salesgirl at Malioboro mall, Yogyakarta city. But the disaster has changed everything. Her spinal injury left her wheelchair-bound. As Yanti told in the book, in the beginning she used to cry a lot about her misfortune. “It took one year for me to recover my spirit,” Yanti remembered. Tear drops falling from her eyes.

PMI through its psychosocial support programme –supported by the Netherland Red Cross- provided assistance to help start disabled people’s live over and to self sustaining. Yanti was one of them. After attending meetings with other disabled people, she rediscovered her enthusiasm for life.

Signing the cover of Stories of Hope book

During group activities, PMI volunteers in provided her with suggestion on producing various small saleable items, such as key chains. Yanti was lucky because she studied dressmaking in high school, so she decided to start producing sewn souvenirs. She also runs a small business selling credit vouchers for mobile phones at her home.

“I hope other disabled people like me in Yogya could also receive the same support from PMI,” Yanti said.

Update: Earthquake shocked Simeulue

Here is what I got from Disaster Management Information System (DMIS) and friends within International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Indonesia Delegation:

A strong earthquake shocked Aceh yesterday, 20 February 2008. The Meteorology and Geophysical Agency (BMG) said the quake had magnitude 6.6 SR (they revised later to 7.6) in location 2.58N, 95.99E at 03.08 PM Local Time in depth 37 kilometres. The first earthquake then followed by at least another two aftershocks in the same location with magnitude 5.5 and 5.3 SR. There is no tsunami warning but people are still worried, make some of them prefer to stay in the higher area.

According data from health department there were 3 elder people died and 25 people injured in Sinabang. Based on their local wisdom if they felt a strong shake automatically they will running to the higher land to see water sea level.

Also reported that electricity in the area was cut down and cellular phone signal was interrupted. Only fixed phone well functioned in this area. Many buildings damaged and collapsed but there are no fix number related with this until this morning.

The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) had deployed 50 local volunteers in Sinabang to the location. PMI patrolled to some subdistricts to observe the conditions. They have been evacuating the injured people to the nearest health facilities. PMI keep 24 hours monitoring unit to update the situation. (ah)