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| SOS Children's Village Medan/Indonesia - Photo: S. Posingis |
It is estimated that 40,000 people in the main town of the Aceh Barat district died as a result of the tidal waves. Just under three years after the disaster, children and their SOS mothers moved into the new village.
Almost all of them are tsunami survivors - the mothers as well. Some of the children lost both their parents; others have lost either their mother or their father. Some of them lost brothers and sisters. Those relatives who have survived are not always able to look after their children for various reasons. And there are also children from broken homes.
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| Meulaboh/Indonesia - Photo: S. Posingis |
Many women, who now care for a newly grown family, have lost their husbands and children. Such is the case for Yusmanidar, who, with her two biological children who were left with her, has found new meaning in her work as an SOS mother.
Altogether six new SOS Children's Villages were established: two in India (Pondicherry and Nagapattinam), three in Indonesia (Medan, Banda Aceh and Meulaboh) and one in Thailand (Phuket). Generous donations will cover the running costs of the villages for several years. Plans to build an SOS Children's Village on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka had to be cancelled because the civil war flared up again.
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| Medan/Indonesia - Photo: S. Posingis |
The new SOS Children's Villages can accommodate more than 800 children. The specific locations were chosen to enable disadvantaged families in the neighbourhoods of the SOS Children's Villages to make use of a wide social infrastructure (family strengthening programmes, kindergartens, social and vocational centres).
Nasrudin says in a quiet voice that he sometimes has flashbacks and can even remember the strange smell that filled the air. When this happens, he can hardly breathe. He was the first child to be given a new home at SOS Children's Village Meulaboh. When shadows of the past fade away again, he smiles and says: "Eventually I'll be director of an SOS Children's Village and will help other children who have lost their parents."
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| Meulaboh/Indonesia - Photo: S. Posingis |
"The pain of mourning has decreased each day because I have seen how the children are learning to cope with the disaster. They give me strength and give my life meaning." SOS mother Yusmanidar, Meulaboh