International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies - July 11, 2006

"I try to imagine what it must be like for the people who have lost relatives ... and it makes me feel very sad," says Umi Alfiah, a 21-year-old student who has been an Indonesian Red Cross volunteer since 2003. "But this is my job, it is part of my soul."

Umi, who is working on reuniting families and tracing those who are still missing after the quake, is one of an astounding one million volunteers across this vast country who give their time unpaid to the Red Cross, known here as Palang Merah Indonesia (PMI).

At least 500 volunteers worked night and day following the earthquake, which devastated swathes of Java on 27 May. Within two hours of the catastrophe, they were pulling both the living and the dead from the rubble, as well as delivering life-saving food and temporary shelter to the thousands of people made homeless by the disaster.

The PMI earthquake response has been supported by a huge international mobilization of relief supplies and personnel coordinated by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. But international delegates only arrive once a disaster has happened, and they leave once their mission has ended. For the staff and volunteers of PMI, this is their life.

"I have seen many horrific things recently," says Waluyyo, a health clinic administrator based at the PMI branch in Klaten. "But whatever happens, it is our obligation to help others."

Klaten, one of the areas worst affected by the quake, is also only 20 kilometres southwest of Mt Merapi, and Waluyyo and his colleagues have been dividing their energies between assisting quake-affected communities and running evacuation camps for the thousands of villagers who live in the shadow of the rumbling volcano.

It is an impressive undertaking.

"You have to remember that a lot of volunteers are also victims of these disasters themselves," says Johnny Mamoedi, a senior Red Cross emergency response official, who headed PMI operations in the early days of the quake response. "But they are all willing and working hard."

Mamoedi worked as a social worker until 1988, when he fell ill with malaria and was treated at a PMI clinic. He was so impressed by the organization that he joined up.

At the PMI branch in Yogyakarta city's Bantul district, where up to 90 percent of houses were totally destroyed by the quake, volunteer Bernadeta Sumiyan helped evacuate the wounded and assisted survivors, despite the fact that she lost one of her brothers in the tragedy.

"I was really shocked by his death, but I still wanted to help all the others," says the 20-year-old, who recently resigned from her job as a waitress to work full time - and unpaid - for the quake relief effort.

International Red Cross and Red Crescent delegates involved in the disaster response have all expressed their admiration for the efficiency and speed of PMI's efforts.

"It's very impressive how well they're organized," says Nathan Cooper, who is coordinating the relief effort for the Federation. "They started distributions within hours of the earthquake, followed by door-to-door damage assessments at village level, which provided vital information to the overall operation."

Part of PMI's success in responding to this latest emergency can be attributed to the knowledge and experience accumulated in the 18 months since the tsunami.

"There were many lessons learned after the tsunami," says Mamoedi. "We knew then that we were going to need to improve our disaster management training, alongside practical skills such as first aid." It is training that has paid off.

But it is not just that experience that has equipped PMI to face Indonesia's awesome humanitarian challenges. In recent years, it has responded to economic and political upheaval, internal conflict in Aceh and East Timor, as well as natural disasters such as forest fires and the ongoing threat of Mt Merapi.

Aside from disaster preparedness and response operations, it runs nationwide primary health care and social welfare programmes, including HIV/AIDS education and a blood transfusion service.

Working in cooperation with both the government and other components of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, PMI's 389 branches now provide services right across the 13,700 islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Yet none of it would be possible without the phenomenal level of personal dedication among both staff and volunteers.

In a PMI-run camp in Kemalang in Klaten sub-district for those evacuated from the slopes of Mount Merapi, Waluyyo prepares for another influx of displaced villagers.

"I was crying a lot after the earthquake when we pulled the dead bodies from the rubble, sometimes it was whole families," he says. "But that is what volunteers must do. We have to be willing to work."

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