A Friend in Mitigation

KOMPAS/CORNELIUS HELMY HERLAMBANG

Aan Anugrah

Aan Anugrah’s face still looked tired. His eyes were weary. However, his eyes sparkled when he talked about his journey to promote disaster mitigation in a remote area of Banten earlier this year.

Driving an old car, Aan traveled with his friend, Idzma Mahayattika, 38, from 18 to 27 February, 2020. Their mission was noble, namely spreading knowledge about living safely in the disaster-prone areas.

In Banten, they joined activists from the Sobat Mengajar who went there earlier. Aan and Idzma visited six districts, namely Sobang, Lebak Gedong, Bojong Manik, Cirinteun, Cigemblong and Bayah. The road to the area was often steep, up and down in a hilly area.

They shared their knowledge of disaster mitigation at 18 elementary schools and one senior high school, ranging from flash floods, landslides to earthquakes and tsunamis. In the evening, they discussed with residents about local wisdom related to disaster mitigation.

"We jointly map out potential disasters. We look into school floor plans, learning their vulnerability and potential disasters and seeing the feasibility of the school infrastructure component," Aan said at an interview in Bandung on Tuesday (25/2).

Aan said almost all the schools he visited in Banten stood in disaster-prone areas. However, because the building cannot be moved easily, Aan focused on thinking about the arrangement of items inside the building so they would not be harmful during a disaster.

Giving an example, he said in almost all schools, cabinets or lockers are not only used to store books, but also other heavy objects. "That is dangerous. If at any time an earthquake hits, the cabinets and all of the contents can collapse and hurt the people around them," he said.

KOMPAS/CORNELIUS HELMY HERLAMBANG

Aan AnugrahKOMPAS/CORNELIUS HELMY HERLAMBANG (CHE)25-02-2020

Yet, not all schools have even minimal mitigation measures. Aan said there were several schools that immediately sent their students home when heavy rains hit their area because the schools were vulnerable to being hit by landslides. The level of sensitivity of the students to disaster threats is also high. They not only include heavy rains and landslides in the list of disaster threats, but also snakes and dry trees that could fall. Things like this, said Aan, are often missed by urban children.

At the end of the activity, the result of the mapping was attached to the school\'s front wall to be a reminder and guide to dealing with disasters.

Slap from Aceh

Aan also absorbed many lessons from residents in several areas. The most important lesson he learned was during his visit to Aceh in 2007. At that time, he was asked to be a speaker during medical training for tsunami survivors.

"I was assigned to Lhoknga, 13 kilometers from Banda Aceh. The area was once hit by a tsunami," said Aan, who also volunteered to respond to the 2004 Aceh tsunami.

Arriving at the training location, Aan got a tepid welcome from 20 teenagers. They did not listen to the material he presented. They did not respond to his call for active participation. Finally, Aan said all of this training material was important to help others.

The participants remained silent. Only about 15 minutes later, one of the children spoke. "You\'re late. If you had come before the tsunami, we might have been able to save our parents!"

Their parents were killed in the tsunami.

Hearing that, Aan was speechless. He felt like he was slapped in the face. Later, he found out that the children were orphans. Their parents were killed in the tsunami. The teenager who spoke again said, "Please teach us brother." After that the training ran well.

"I am always touched when I remember that experience," Aan said with tears in his eyes. After the visit, Aan felt he had a bigger enthusiasm to be more active in learning about medical and disaster victim assistance.

In 2010, Aan was brokenhearted after volunteering for victims of the Mentawai tsunami and the eruption of Mount Merapi. He was sad to see the disasters still claimed lives. Aan was sure one of the triggers was the lack of attention to managing disaster mitigation.

Driven by that concern, Aan co-founded the Jaga Balai Foundation with Riki Waskita in 2016. Balai in Sundanese means “disaster”.

Resilience

At the beginning, Jaga Balai organized training for disaster mitigation volunteers, especially for land-movement disasters, on 13 July, 2016. The participants were 13 residents of Bandung regency who live in disaster-prone areas. Over time, the requests for assistance increased. Jaga Balai became better known.

The group also visited schools to introduce disaster mitigation. Jaga Balai collaborated with the Bandung Regency Disaster Mitigation Agency and gave birth to the Rikat Tanggulun community. Rikat in Sundanese means “agile” or “deft”.

This community consists of residents of Tanggulun village, Ibun district, Bandung regency who live in flood-prone areas along the Citarum River. "For three days, they participated in mitigation training," said Aan.

Through such training, residents who didn\'t understand mitigation at all would later understand it.

Through such training, residents who didn\'t understand mitigation at all would later understand it. This made Aan even more enthusiastic about traveling to give understanding about mitigation.

"Hopefully, I will get more knowledge about disaster mitigation to be disseminated more widely to all the people I meet later," he said

Aan Anugrah

Born: Indramayu, 17 October 1981

Education: SMA Al Masoem Sumedang (graduated in 1999)