by Vero Balderas Iglesias, UNV Communication Specialist Banda Aceh

18 December 2006

Banda Aceh, Indonesia: “It was the first time for me to hear the name 'Aceh', but the pictures I saw on television were always on my mind. I spent my pocket money to buy some equipment including a huge backpack, a helmet, some medicine and a plane ticket. This was the beginning of my new life as a volunteer.”

Norimasa Tochibayashi arrived in Indonesia on February 23, 2005. He had no job, no idea where he was heading and how he could help, and no contact numbers of people who would be willing to support him. He was only certain of one thing: he wanted to help those who most needed it after the December 26 tsunami.

For days the young Japanese man explored his surroundings looking for an opportunity to contribute his skills. The country was mourning; too many victims and international organizations were struggling to keep up with the relief work. Thus, Norimasa's efforts were more than welcome when he approached the Indonesian Red Cross and the International Labour Organization. However, at that time only short-term assignments were at hand.

“When my contracts finished, Aceh's recovery had just started. I wanted to commit and I tried getting a long-term assignment there”. It was then when Norimasa entered the local UNDP office in Banda Aceh and was introduced to the Tsunami Project Coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme. Two months later, Norimasa was recruited as an International UNV volunteer for UNORC’s UN Information Management Services (UNMIS), where he successfully worked for almost a year as a HIC Field Coordinator.

Norimasa’s strong commitment and unconditional aim to helping others is shared by more than 200 national and international UNV volunteers who have so far served in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives since 2005. UNV volunteers have also supported the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery and served as UNV Field Reporting Offices in Indonesia, Maldives, Thailand, and India. This contribution has been facilitated through an outlay of US$ 7.8 million, funded by the governments of Japan, Germany and the Czech Republic.

All UNV volunteers have contributed a great amount of technical skills, experience and support not only to their host agencies, but to small and medium community and non-governmental organizations as well.
International Volunteer Day (IVD), celebrated on December 5, constituted an outstanding opportunity to highlight the importance of volunteerism as a 'holistic human approach'.

“Every single country has facets of volunteerism ingrained in its culture and traditions. It is a tremendous way for people to participate and make a difference”, said Ad de Raad, UNV's Executive Coordinator in his IVD message saluting volunteers worldwide. “The power of volunteering for development is in its simplicity. While the concept is a very old one, what is new is the idea that volunteerism can and should be tapped and channeled towards meeting current development challenges”, he underlined.

On his side Kemal Dervis, Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) encouraged voluntary action for development saying that “it goes to the heart of the long term process of building capacity in people and institutions”. “Through the effective mobilization of volunteers”, he added, “local communities are engaged as agents of change, making a real difference within their own neighborhoods.”

The work carried out by UNV volunteers in Indonesia is already serving as an example to communities benefiting from different Recovery Programmes such as UN-Habitat's “Aceh-Nias Settlements Support Programme” in which the affected families are at the centre of the recovery process and today are mobilizing their own resources to keep it going. UNV also has a small grant programme entitled “Support to Post Tsunami Livelihoods Rehabilitation in Banda Aceh”. It has engaged one Aceh based NGO (YDS) and a consortium of four NGO's (collectively named TRIBAL) to implement two grant schemes to support the opening of a community centre, shelter provision, training schemes and economic and agricultural recovery activities. TRIBAL is currently giving entrepreneurship training to a group of women, whose small businesses were lost or affected by the tsunami. They will acquire basic skills to better create and sell their products.

In Sri Lanka, 13 national UNV volunteers are supporting the 'Environmental Small Grant Programme' (GEF/SGP). They help strengthen the capacities of local NGOs to act as a vital link between the government and affected communities. It actually empowers the locals to actively participate in post-tsunami recovery and reconstruction efforts in the areas of restoration of coastal vegetation, including beach rehabilitation and biodiversity enhancement. It also considers the provision of shelter and rehabilitation of livelihood sectors, health and sanitation, including counseling and environmental remediation; and enhancing the capacity of NGOs, CBOs, and community members to carry out and sustain post-tsunami restoration activities. The latter include marine and coastal ecosystem management and documentation and sharing of lessons learned from the tsunami recovery process.

Besides the on-site contributions, every day on-line volunteers grow in number. Using the website of UNV’s Online Volunteering Service (www.onlinevolunteering.org) as a portal, they make translations, give advice or propose new ideas to organizations that require these kind of services.

Alas there is still much work to be done in order to change preconceived ideas that diminish the value of volunteerism. General misconceptions of volunteers being less educated or skilled than staff workers, sometimes discourage professional applicants who would be just perfect for the job.

“In my opinion, the potential capacity of volunteers and civil society more generally has yet to be fully unleashed. There is even an often neglected economic component to this.” said Ad Melkert, UN Under Secretary-General and UNDP Associate Administrator. In his message on the occasion of IVD he explained that “in Latin America, economists have calculated the contribution of volunteers' efforts and output countries' GDP, covering needs that are not covered by others and helping to deliver basic services”.

Volunteers see rewards to their own lives not in terms of financial gains, but rather in experience; exchange of cultural and professional knowledge with other colleagues and most importantly in that smile that is always drawn on the face of the one they successfully helped overcome difficult times.

“After my legs were paralyzed as a result of a disease, I stayed 20 years inside my home. I didn't want to go out”, recalls thirty-seven year old Nurbaidarmi. “I was shy because I couldn't walk. But I became confident again after 'Handicap International' (NGO) donated me a wheelchair and UNESCO facilitated my training to become a kindergarten teacher,” she explained.

And to the question regarding UNV's contribution Nurbaidarmi simply replied “Ruhama Ahdy contributed her professional skills as a National UNV volunteer Project Monitoring Assistant, but for me, she was like a sister, like a family member that offered me advice when I most needed it,” Nurbaidarmi concluded.