11/12/18 – Our gratitude for all the support and prayers cannot be put into words. The past few months have been extremely hectic, but all the kindness has pulled us through. We are amazed by the resilience of the children. The trauma of losing their home, the ongoing reconstruction around them (lots of noise and less space to play) and the ongoing aftershocks have not broken their spirit.

Apart from the aftershocks we only have good news. With all the progress we have made the past few months, it has been challenging to keep everyone up to date. Going forward we will put more details of the reconstruction on paper so you can experience the joy of rebuilding Peduli Anak with us.

At the end of October – just in time for the rain season – the children left their tents and moved into their renovated elementary school classrooms. The teachers now use the vocational school building for all the classes. It takes a bit of improvising as this building still needs to be renovated: fixing the cracks in the walls, reinforcing the walls with extra columns, installing an seismic-proof ceiling and a new roof. This will be done room by room to keep the school operational.

Early November the four shelter homes were demolished and the area was completely cleared. Apart from the mosque which only needed a new roof. To keep everyone safe a large fence was put up across the grounds to separate the working and living zone. And the best news is that we have started with the construction of the new seismic-proof homes. We will follow up shortly with all the details on these new houses.

Thanks to many companies and the efforts of many individuals and volunteers we also received a lot of building materials: such as blocks, cement, ceramic floors, paint and door hardware. We will keep fundraising and hope to be able to move into the new homes (for 140 children!) in July/ Around the same time we hope to also be able to open the new clinic, office and volunteer quarters. After that the landscaping and building of a playground will top it all off.

Together with architects from Indonesia, The Netherlands (RoyalHaskoningDHV and BAM International) and Australia, Chaim Fetter, one of the founders, will stay on the ground at Peduli Anak to ensure everything will continue to run smoothly and to monitor the reconstruction process.

We want to end with a special shout-out two Peduli Anak children who have written and recorded a song called ‘Kami Kuat’ which means ‘We are strong’. We are so proud of Oki Saputra and Silvi Fatmawati (singer). Click here to see the clip (with English subtitles):

We will follow up shortly with more details on the designs of the new houses. In the meantime have a look at these short videos to get a better impression of the reconstruction process: https://youtu.be/sNiaNn0uqNo & https://youtu.be/-ogmEjiMRGM.

Continue to follow us via our social media @pedulianak. Thank you!