For months, I’ve been hearing people ask, “How much money was actually collected for Indonesian victims after the bombing and how has it been spent?”
First of all, how many Indonesian victims were there and how were they accounted for in all the chaos that followed the bombing?
Volunteers started arriving at Sanglah hospital within a few hours of the bombing. Among them was a group using borrowed computers who started to keep records of the injured, missing and dead as they were identified. This list eventually reflected the roll call of the 39 dead and 125 injured Indonesian victims of the tragedy who have been traced. (There were 205 Indonesian injured recorded at hospitals in the police report.) We may never know how many others there were. Some of the injured were thought to have returned immediately to their villages in shock. Some of the dead were probably vaporized without a trace by the heat of the blast.
Within two weeks of the Bali bomb blasts, a group of NGOs and concerned individuals met at Sanglah Hospital and formed what was to become the Bali Recovery Group. The Group’s main objective has been to coordinate activities between the different organizations in order to deliver optimum services to the survivors while minimizing duplication of effort. Sub-committees were formed for family financial support, immediate and long term medical care, counselling, education, the environment, economic recovery and public awareness.
Immediately after the bombing, money and in-kind assistance began to pour in from all over the world. Much of the assistance was channelled through Yayasan Bali Hati, an Ubud-based non-government organization. As of August 1, 2003, Bali Hati had received donations of US$ 392,802 (based on Rp 8500) for the direct and indirect care of the Indonesian Bali bomb victims. At time of writing, US$ 104,553 remains to be disbursed. The victims will be serviced from this fund until December 31, 2003.
The Bali Recovery Group tracks the majority of money received or spent on Indonesian victims and their families from all sources: government, insurance companies, NGOs and others. Over 100 donors are listed in the database.
Payments by Donor Type
Donor Type Total
Government Total 1,771,680,000 All Indonesian Governments
BRG Associate 1,253,556,818
Non BRG NGO 360,500,000
Commercial 279,741,000
BRG Affiliate 266,974,278
Insurance 231,073,810
Private 20,750,000
Political 4,000,000
BRG cannot definitively state payments made by non-BRG donors. Where possible data is obtained from the donor or from the families of the victims.
Financial Support
To date, over Rupiah 4 billion has been received by victims and their families in either cash or kind.
Category Total in millions of Rupiah
Lump Sum 1,985.13
Living 558.11
Medical 334.55
Special Needs 314.22 (includes cremations and funerals)
Education 292.12
Travel 259.20 (within Indonesia)
Insurance 230.57
Indirect victims 179.50 (Kuta residents)
In the first few days after the bomb blast, Bali Hati began providing financial assistance to the Indonesian families of the victims from the Crisis Centre at Sanglah Hospital.
Financial services are now being provided to 86 active cases through five BRG family sponsors:
Bali Hati 73 families April Lam 3 families
Adopta 6 families BIWA 1 family
Zero to One 3 families
The Bali Recovery Group suggests to family sponsors a sliding scale of living support depending on the size of the family, rent requirements and other factors. Bali Hati and April Lam follow these guidelines, with support varying from Rp 350,000 to Rp 1.2 million per month, with an average of about Rp 800,000 per month. Other sponsors are operating on a set amount of Rp 550,000 per month.
Medical Support
Medical outpatient services are provided at Sanglah Hospital as well as through Bali Hati and the Yayasan Kemanusiaan Indonesia/The John Fawcett Foundation. Just as in Australia, some victims have continued to require outpatient treatment after their release from hospital for burns, eardrum damage and shrapnel wounds. The Indonesian Government extended free hospital support to bomb victims, but many patients require on-going specialist treatment not readily available in Bali as well as expensive prosthetic support. Skin recovery from burns, including grafting, can take up to two years. Badly disfigured or maimed victims require extensive counselling and financial support during this often painful treatment period.
Currently, 11 patients have already been or will be sent to Australia by the Yayasan Kemanusiaan Indonesia to receive specialist care and rehabilitation to which they don’t have access in Indonesia. Australian consultants visiting Bali treat patients brought in by the Yayasan Kemanusiaan Indonesia.
With financial assistance first from USAID and now from Australian Red Cross, Bali Hati provides a medical team for patient and family aftercare that has so far helped 113 injured victims who have been traced, and is still working with 28 bomb victims. Monthly follow-up of closed cases is done by phone or home visit. Bali Hati also operates two houses in Denpasar where patients stay while receiving treatment. The houses, contracted for one year, have been paid for by the Hong Kong Friends of Bali.
NGOs have sponsored Rp 336 million for medical care.
Educational Support
Two separate programs are operated for educating the children of the bomb victims. In March, the Salvation Army provided each child in 20 families with a bank account in which the capital is kept intact and the interest is available for schooling costs. (Salvation Army is not a member of the Bali Recovery Group.) This was a one-off payment.
The second major program for children is provided by two foundations working together, YKIDS and YKIP, which pays school costs directly from a central fund to either the school or vendor of clothes, books etc. This program so far helps to educate 50 semi-orphaned children from 23 families plus a further 57 children from 37 families where the victim is currently disabled. Their schooling needs are assessed continually by an employed outreach person and fees are paid directly to the schools. The program will continue for 21 years with an estimated cost of Rp 5,837,326,240. A total of Rp 1,230,645,686 has been donated so far to YKIP and YKIDS for this fund. The total fund is audited as one entity.
Disbursements for Educational Support include:
Salvation Army Rp 225,000,000 (20 families, 41 children)
YKids Rp 82,802,728 (73 children to date)
Students of Norway Rp 8,690,000 (7 families)
Zero to One Rp 337,000 (1 family)
While most of YKIP-YKids resources are provided free of charge by Courts, YKIP also provides from the fund one salaried position to work full time with families.
Psychological Support
International Medical Corps (IMC) has provided counselling support to direct victims and their families as well as the general Bali population. To date, 147 individuals have been seen at the IMC clinic for individual and/or group counselling and treatment.
Every week IMC receives referrals for new patients, as many local people are still suffering mental health problems related to the bombing. Symptoms for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can emerge months or years after a traumatic incident, and IMC has discovered that the stressors of the trials for the suspected Bali bombers and the upcoming one year anniversary are triggers for symptoms to either re-emerge or to show up for the first time.
IMC brought interactive radio programs, focus group discussions and the bondres traditional drama to Negara, Singaraja, Karangasem, Klungkung, and Denpasar. They filmed the bondres traditional dramas, which were televised on Bali TV the week after the performance. IMC have had interactive television programs regarding PTSD, trauma, depression, psychosocial problems in children, the potential for drug and alcohol abuse due to the economic crisis, and the potential for psychological problems in laid-off workers. They have worked closely with the Department of Health, the Department of Manpower and the Social Department (Department Sosial). Their media campaign also includes newspaper ads, brochures, pamphlets, booklets for parents regarding psychosocial problems in children and a cartoon booklet regarding PTSD. The media campaign has been highly successful and IMC have received many referrals as a result of all the programs. The bondres traditional drama in particular has been hugely successful and attended by up to 700 people in the local communities where they are performed. The bondres troupes all consult with IMC psychiatrists before their performances so they understand the issues IMC want conveyed in that particular show.
In the past, IMC was funded by AusAID, USAID and UNICEF. The current donor is Australian Red Cross.
As well as the services provided by IMC, Yayasan YKIP sponsored a Wayang Kulit play to raise public awareness of PTSD and how to cope with it. This play reached 3,700 people directly and 50,000 through television. The victim database helped target the live performances in villages where children of the bomb victims lived.
Stage Two – Sustainable Livelihoods
The second stage of the Bali Recovery Group’s activities focuses on helping the victims regain self-sufficiency through financial independence. This will be achieved by either helping individuals with job placement, training for new skills such as language, computer and beautician courses etc, and/or purchasing the tools needed to start a small business. Each person must submit a proposal outlining their intended project and how they will effectively operate the business. A Bali Hati staff person from the Support Centre (previously called the Crisis Centre) is involved in any purchasing to ensure that the money is used for the intended purpose. Then monthly inspections will be made by the Bali Hati field worker to monitor the operations of the business and report to the Central office. Up to Rp 5 million per family will be allocated in this program.
What about Administration costs?
Classically, a large percentage of donations can be eaten up in administration costs. In this case, specific administration donations and grants cover all the administration expenses incurred by Bali Hati, April Lam, Yayasan Kids and IMC, including rental space for the offices, car rental, office supplies and overhead, salaries of two office staff and general operating expenses. Salaries for database maintenance, the Medical Care Program, Crisis Office Co-ordinator plus IT equipment are separately sponsored.
Jakarta Bombing Support
The recent bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta re-opened many wounds for the Indonesian bomb victims, many of whom are on the steep climb out of their devastating experience last October. A special evening and dinner was held for all victims and their families still living in Bali, including 17 widows and their children, at Hotel Sanur Beach on 9 August. This event (again privately sponsored) was initiated by Bali Hati to enable the families to support each other at this time. They were also advised of the decision to send six of them to Jakarta to help victims there work through the initial process of recovery, to help give comfort and hope from their own experiences.
A complete list of Bali Hati’s income and expenditures will be available on the Bali Hati website by mid-September, 2003 at the completion of the current audit.
BRG would love to hear from you if you have directly helped the victims and their families financially and are not included in these details. Please contact balirecovery@yahoo.com
