The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted October 12, 2009, 5:37 am by Glory Dwi Anjan...

The team behind the emergency response team

This morning when I arrived at the office, I got a call from one of my team members, Hasdi — a Community Facilitator for our Community Development Program here in Banda Aceh. He’s one of the members of Indonesia Response Team (IRT) in Padang, as a volunteer from our office. Immediately I was a bit worried, but he reassured me that everything was fine, just a little bit sleepless from the non-stop trips of assessment and distribution. He just missed us and wanted to hear the updates about our office.

“How’s work? Is everything fine?” he asked me with full concern. Then I said, “What work? We don’t have anything to do around here, so don’t worry!” Then we laughed heartily. I told him not to worry; I still have the other folks doing a great job and taking care of the work of those who have been deployed to Padang and surrounding areas for the emergency response. But it is, in fact, a busy time for us here: I am managing a team of 22 people for our two-year Community Development Program here in Banda Aceh. We're at the peak of workload to be completed: it's the month when our quarterly report to donors needs to be submitted.

When the devastating earthquake hit Padang on September 30, 2009, I was on an airplane on the way back to Banda Aceh from a weeklong break for the Eid Ul Fitr holiday. Therefore, I know nothing about the deadly disaster — not until my sister called me from home to make sure I was fine. She was afraid that the earthquake has shaken Aceh as well.

The following day, instead of focusing on catching up on work after the holiday, I got a quick morning briefing from my supervisor about the steps we needed to take in response to the disaster. I was needed to make a quick decision, because four of my staff members are currently on the IRT and two of them are team leaders. So, I met both of the leaders and asked for their willingness to be deployed soon — of course, they did not hesitate at all.

Starting that day —the first day after the earthquake — we prepared our team for some of their colleagues being deployed. We talked about what we needed to do in order to keep delivering our program in 40 villages across four sub-districts, as scheduled. We started preparing handover notes and appointing persons-in-charge.

Then came another day of decision: Tuesday, October 6, when Mercy Corps' Aceh Director told me that Padang needed as many team backup as possible. He planned to send all the IRT members in our office, plus some other folks who wanted to volunteer for the emergency response. That was the biggest pang for me: I needed to send five of our eight team members from our office to Padang the next day. It felt a little bit weird for me when that critical situation did happen, but we were ready. And it feels great that we could help in the emergency response by dedicating our team members there.

My conversation with Hasdi ended like this: “Okay, boss, I need to go now. We have a meeting."

Take care folks, we are supporting you! Keep up the spirit out there!