Jakarta (Kedaulatan Rakyat: 04/06/06) "MBAK  (sister) please, the Semoyo area in Pathuk Gunungkidul needs sanitary napkins. Please… the women need them badly," said Mukhlas quickly to his friend. He was confused, when he visited some of his employees to bring food supplies, there is an ‘unexpected’ demand. "Please, mbak, find it for us."  Mukhlas is trying to work alone. The father of a child belongs to a small group of group of friends, working as volunteers to ease the burden of the earthquake victims. "I do not have any intention to join any organization. And I chose to help victims living in remote places that have not been reached by anyone," he said.

He delivers any kind of donations from friends’ everyday. There are blankets, sarongs, male and female under wears, children’s clothes, basic food, infant formula and others. Meanwhile, in his home, his family and neighbors are preparing rice in packets to be delivered to those having not received any food aid. Everything was carried out independently; they raise money among them and receive donations from friends spontaneously. They help, assist and donate without hoping for any publication.

They try to implement the philosophy ‘don’t let your left hand see when your right hand gives any donation’. In their work, they did not share any rigid task division except gathering the data to which regions the aid supplies would to be delivered, based on the information gathered from their network.

Package of Rice
"For me, this is an effective way. Employees working with me who suffered from the earthquake will report directly. So as my friends and acquaintances. They will tell me what they need, how much, without being inflated and usually it reach directly the persons in need," said Mukhlas adding he could skip the complicated bureaucracy and he did not have to worry that those aid supply would not reached those in needs.

There are many people who become spontaneous and independent volunteers. Even though, they maybe only helping by channeling the aids they or other persons have gathered. Or maybe they just deliver several package of rice, helping to manage the traffic circulation in disaster-affected areas, or public kitchen. They are not a few, and they are often ‘overlooked.’ Even though some of them maybe also victims of the earthquake that struck a week ago.

After the earthquake disaster, many Posko (Post) have been established. Some of them are located in the areas affected by the disaster, in various state institutions or in other save areas. Usually they occur spontaneously, mainly due to the need of gathering and distributing the funds and logistics.

Disaster management should not be a carried out impulsively. It is better to take anticipative measures. "Learning from Aceh and other disasters in Jember and Banjarnegara, Therefore, Muhammadiyah is now working permanently. Previously all of the efforts were handled by Disaster Management Board (Badan Penanggulangan Bencana), but there is no Task Forces (Satgas); But now, we have a Task Force directly under the supervision of Health and Welfare Council (MKMM) of the Muhammadiyah board," said Rahmawati SSos MCP, Assistant Program Manager who is in charge of medic and operations.

With a permanent channel, its existence is recognized. They are also allowed to use Muhammadiyah’s infrastructure. Such as system, Rahma explained have been functioning during the tsunami disaster in Aceh, floods and landslides in Jember and Banjarnegara. However, then we did not have any task forces and we do not have any data about the number of volunteers working in the field, public kitchen, health volunteers and assessment volunteers.

With the official establishment of the Disaster Task Forces, Muhammadiyah Association who focuses in charity under the coordination of MKMM, that direct all Muhammadiyah hospitals, polyclinics and other infirmaries. MKMM is the one having the authority to give instruction and to coordinate all the Muhammadiyah regional boards in charge of the management. "Regional MKMM is in charge to coordinate and to take care of the working schedule.

Which means, the central board will assign, and the region will take care of the volunteers? This Voluntary Action also serves to empower the Medical Faculty and Health Polytechnics owned by Muhammadiyah. This also involves the higher education," he added. Where and how are they deployed? According to Rachma, it has been decided carefully.

"We have briefings and task division everyday. Therefore, we have all the information, concerning evacuation - who and where to -; those working in medical sector, what they need, etc. When the volunteers have to go to the public kitchen, they know what the menu; and when they have to distribute the logistic, they know which areas have received supplies, which haven’t. During the briefing, volunteers were also told about how to behave… like ethical codes, eve though all of them were not written.

External division
Meanwhile Hendri Satrio who coordinates volunteers from Sampoerna Foundation Student Club (SFSC) said that the volunteers are not medical volunteers or those specialized in evacuation. "Our concern is long term programs in education," he said. Therefore all the task division has been explained since the beginning. If there are three volunteers in a tent, one of them will take care of the logistic, another one taking care of food and another one education.

The Education volunteers are tasked to survey and to gather information from schools to assess the physical condition, education facilities and infrastructure. As a coordinator, Hendri divides them in several divisions. In the post, he explained, there are logistic division, external division who interact with donators, Sampoerna Foundation headquarters and local authorities. There is also field division, distribution division and volunteer seekers.

"We are not adopting 100% what we are doing in Aceh in the aftermath of the tsunami; because we were entirely focusing on education in Aceh. But in Yogyakarta we also take care of shelter. In Yogyakarta, our volunteers also run public kitchens," he added. Therefore, if in Aceh we assigned volunteers in Yogya, we deploy, students receiving scholarships from Sampoerna Foundation (SF). Therefore, Hendri admitted that the volunteers never undergo a special training.

The elites
Focusing on Education, SFSC members, those students have sensibility on the condition of education and its environment has always been cultivated. In other words, Hendri said, if they would not encounter any problems when they become education volunteers.

However, he asserted there should be training for volunteers. At least, volunteers should be trained to treat the victims as subjects; therefore, they will have empathy for them. Besides, volunteers are also trained to manage stress. "It is not easy to become a volunteer. One or two days in the field could make you stress. Imagine while we are doing something others asked us to do another thing which they said very urgent.

Afterwards, volunteers are trained to take care of their health, because taking care of such a disaster needs quite a long time it is not a short term duty, it can be very long including the recovery period,” he added.
Therefore, on the sidelines of their duties, SFSC volunteers were taking stress management training at held by the Faculty of Psychology of Gadjah Mada University. Therefore, besides having to be able to manage stress they also have to help easing victims’ stress.

Hendri Satrio said he had never undergone any training to become volunteers. If I was moved to come to Aceh and Yogya, it’s because I fell as an Indonesian, I have a responsibility to the country and the nation. “In case of disaster, the ones who should come directly to the field are our elites or those having a lot of money, not us.

But they are so happy hoping for foreign assistance. And the media also widely expose involvement of foreigners. I was sad when the media expose about the public kitchen run by Turks. There are many public kitchen run by Indonesians, aren’t they?" said Hendri censuring the media.