http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6187154.stm
The BBC's Lucy Williamson finds out why many children are unlikely to go home soon.
Every morning, before leaving for school, the staff at Rumah Asuh do a head-count. Fifty children, all victims of the tsunami, stand in rows to shout out their number.
Among them is eight-year-old Apriliya Adisaputra - one of the youngest here.
Apriliya's parents are both still alive. They live in temporary housing 30 minutes drive away. This is the story of how he came to be here, and why he cannot go home.
After breakfast, he sits down and tells me his story.
"After the tsunami, my mum told me I should come here because I could meet a lot of friends," he says. "I was sad when they told me I had to come here because it meant I couldn't see my mother. If I stayed at home, I could see her all the time."
There are around 2,000 children like Apriliya in Aceh; children sent away from home, not because the tsunami took away their parents, but because it took away the means to care for them.
| | It's really difficult here. There's no aid any more, the food stopped last year, and it's hard to find work. Apriliya Adisaputra's mother |
In his office at the top of Rumah Asuh, the director, Mr Iskander explains why Apriliya is better off in care.
"We have quite a lot of funding at the moment; around $5,300 each month. It's quite a lot, yes, but we have lots to pay for - school books, clothes, food, transport. We provide everything these children need."
There is plenty to pay for, but there are no accounts. Mr Iskander has no clear record of where exactly the money is going each month.
Lump sum payments
Donor money is pouring into Aceh, but why do children need to live in institutions to get a proper education or a decent meal?
In Banda Aceh, Apriliya's parents live in a warren of temporary housing - blank wooden huts clutching the remains of homes and families.
Seated on the wooden floor of their tiny, one-room hut, Apriliya's mother tells me why they sent him away.
"It's really difficult here," she says. "There's no aid any more, the food stopped last year, and it's hard to find work. Usually we just eat rice with salt, three times a day."
Apriliya gazes at his mother as she talks. When we leave, he holds his father's hand all the way back to the main road.
According to Save The Children, 17 new children's homes have opened in Aceh since the tsunami, and more are planned.
And as long as there are children like Apriliya to fill them, the funding channels remain open.
Children should be with their families if possible, says Delsey Ronni, head of social affairs at the BRR - Jakarta's department for the reconstruction of Aceh.
But the BRR gives vulnerable children inside the panti (orphanage) twice as much subsidy as those living with their families.
And it also hands out lump sum payments to the institutions themselves.
Free education
Delsey Ronni says his department gives priority to homes that are new, over-crowded and full of tsunami victims.
Reason enough for institutions to seek out children like Apriliya and reason enough for families like his to let them go.
Apriliya first heard about Rumah Asuh when the home sent representatives to the refugee camp where he was living after the tsunami.
The home organised prayer meetings to gather families together, and handed out application forms to anyone interested in a free education for their child.
Most of the homes in Aceh are not bad places. Often, it is the only way parents can secure a better life for their child.
But the issue is more one of why children with parents are being placed here at all. And why funding is not reaching families like Apriliya's.
Back at Rumah Asuh, Apriliya is focusing on his dream of becoming a policeman. That, and playing football, like his hero Ronaldo.
Two years on from the tsunami, there is still no plan for him to return home.
He has already lost his two younger brothers to the tsunami. Unless something changes in Aceh, he is in danger of growing up without his parents too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6187154.stm
Published: 2006/11/27 14:35:32 GMT
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