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| A member of PEKKA helps build her new house in Aceh |
August 12, 2005 -- A group of Acehnese widows has built nine houses as part of an effort to help each other put their lives back together after last year’s tsunami.
"It is true that women in Aceh generally are not participating in construction efforts," said Nani Zuliminarni, the national coordinator of PEKKA – the Woman Headed Household Empowerment Program that has helped bring the women together. "However, after the tsunami the widows decided to try to build their houses, since they have no families to help them."
The PEKKA program, which is part of the World Bank sponsored Kecamatan Development Project in Indonesia, aims to address the needs of widows and women living in areas of conflict by helping them overcome their isolation and providing skills training and small-scale loans. Widowed women living in war torn regions are among the poorest of Indonesia’s 28 million people living in poverty.
Just a few years old, the program already has more than 6,000 members, and the number continues to grow. "PEKKA field staff have begun working with other women in Aceh who were affected by the tsunami," said Zuliminarni.
Thirteen women in the group died during the tsunami. About 50 members of the group lost their homes, and another 50 lost capital from the small businesses they had started. While the tsunami has affected almost everyone in the area, said Zuliminarni, "women who are heads of households, well, they are on their own."
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| PEKKA members help build a house in Aceh. |
Using funding provided by a Muslin society in Britain, the women organized the house construction themselves – designing the houses, selecting and purchasing the materials, hiring a local builder, and managing the work on the houses themselves. "Luckily, one of the PEKKA field staff has a background in architecture and construction, so she designed the houses after discussions with the women," said Zuliminarni.
The group has also been using money from tsunami donors to start up new businesses. Some women have started businesses selling salt, while others have used this money to purchase goats.
For more information, visit the PEKKA Program web page of the East Asia and Pacific Social Development website.
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