Building Bridges by Example

Mercy Corps is helping internally displaced people return to their homes and jobs. Photo: Nick MacDonald/ Mercy Corps.

In Maluku Province, Indonesia, people fondly remember the days when Christians used to help their Muslim neighbors build mosques and Muslims helped to build churches. When fighting broke out in 1999 nearly all interaction came to a halt and today people from different religious backgrounds are not able to even visit each other’s towns.

With an office based in the provincial capital, Ambon, Mercy Corps is serving as a bridge between the two communities while also working with local partners to deliver critical aid to vulnerable people.

“We host workshops that focus on non-conflict related activities that bring Christians and Muslims together,” says Mercy Corps field worker Nick MacDonald. “We don’t explicitly talk about conflict resolution but rather about things that people share an interest in such as midwifery or how to write business proposals and through this they come to find areas where there can be cooperation.”

The Mercy Corps office in Ambon is situated in the small, religiously neutral part of the city, which is viewed as a valuable meeting spot. Additionally, Mercy Corps is the only NGO in the region with a mixed Muslim and Christian staff, a powerful symbol that also is an asset in the field.

“There were many challenges with having a mixed staff at first, but the increased creativity and capacity that our staff bring has made it well worth it,” MacDonald says.

Having a dedicated, mixed staff, MacDonald says, is a particular advantage when it comes to rapidly responding to crises in the province, which is made up of widely dispersed islands that are often only accessible by boat and where pockets of fighting can occur at any moment.

Mercy Corps currently works with 100 local organizations to provide non-food items, water sanitation and shelter improvements to more than 160,000 internally displaced persons that often live in squalid warehouses and government camps.

“The focus of our energy now is trying to help people to return home and with the amount of housing that has been destroyed that is real challenge,” says Mercy Corps field worker Anna Young.

Mercy Corps is also working to increase the capacity of local NGOs, which are often viewed with a degree of mistrust by the Indonesian government and in some local communities.

“We have found that the people in Maluku Province are extremely determined and resourceful. They are determined to take control of their lives and while the situation is fluid and complicated, in some areas we have begun to see a change for the better,” MacDonald says.