COMMUNITY ENHANCEMENT VIA

PARTICIPATORY APPROACH IN RECOVERY:

Determining Factors towards Enhancement of
Tsunami-affected Community in Banda Aceh City, Indonesia
Grace Yuswita Harahap, Mohamed Amiruddin Fawzi Bahaudin, Nurwati Badarulzaman
School of Housing, Building and Planning
Universiti Sains Malaysia
11800, Pulau Pinang
Malaysia
grace_yuswita.rd07@student.usm.my, mafawzi@usm.my, nurwati@usm.my

Abstract

Tsunami recovery assistance not only supports the community to restore their lives and livelihoods,
and to reconstruct their houses and settlements, but also, very importantly, strengthens the
communities’ capacities to achieve a higher level of well-being. Thus participation as an activity in the
recovery process is intended to empower individuals and the community in order for both to be
capable of taking charge of their lives, besides improving their overall general state of well-being. In
the first place, these tsunami-affected communities are already vulnerable with many of them in
chronically poor condition. They are now subjected to the widening of inequalities within their own
societies and also suffer from the after effects of a long-standing armed conflict. In such a complex
situation, a proper understanding of a participatory approach in tsunami recovery process is therefore
necessary and strategic. Although findings of a research study have shown that ‘assistance’ was
valuable to support the community in the reconstruction process, almost half of the respondents,
however, were uncertain whether they are able to continue with the recovery process without the
assistance of ‘facilitators’. From the preliminary findings of this research study it has been able to
formulate a structure or pattern of influencing factors which are essential as well fundamental for
practical uses and purposes for planning practitioners. Clearly, it seems to suggest that it is vital to
focus on key essential factors within the empowerment process which have been carried out for post-
disaster communities, especially those which revolve around the attributes and emphasize the
characteristics of the realities of limited financial resources.

Keywords: empowerment, facilitator, participation, recovery

1 Introduction
Involving the disaster-affected individuals and communities in planning and
reconstruction process is an especially great challenge for planners and practitioners, since the
circumstances are so far from normal (Ganapati and Ganapati 2009). The limited literature on
planning for disaster recovery does not explain in detail the factors that determine community
enhancement through participatory planning and reconstruction. This paper explores these
factors through a survey study of planning and housing reconstruction activities in four
tsunami-affected villages in Banda Aceh city, Indonesia which was struck by tsunami on
December 26, 2004.
The study shows that the participatory process empowered communities to be
significantly involved in planning of the village and reconstruction of their houses. However,

1
the communities admitted that their capability was not convincing in order to organize
themselves to carry out next reconstruction/development processes without assistance from
facilitators. I suggest that this arose from inadequate fulfilment of determining factors.
Determining factors toward community enhancement obtained from three sources, i.e. chiefs
of village, donors-including its policies and facilitators, and members-of-community. One
factor missing may hinder community enhancement in participatory process. However, an
essential precondition for community enhancement is the return of community to their village
and start working on their village reconstruction.
In the section that follow, a literature review of key factors affecting participation and of
evaluating empowerment process, followed by a description of research methods. Then,
participatory planning process in Aceh is introduced. Next, I examine the survey results, and
then the lessons of the study for practitioners to be aware of. Finally, I conclude with a
summary and discussion of directions for future research.

2 Key factors and processes affecting participation

The development of community participation is shaped by a range of factors and
processes that influence it at every turn. Those factors can be divided into external and
internal factors. The processes affecting participation also need to be considered (Plummer
and Taylor 2004).
External factors are factors that cannot be addressed by the stakeholders within the
confines of a project. These factors interact to form the operating context of a project or
initiative and include the legislative, administrative, and policy context that enables, disable,
or encourage community participation. These factors are: policy and legislative context,
policy leadership, and administrative factors.
Internal factors, on the other hand, are those aspects of the community and individual
participants that ultimately influence the shape of the participation achieved. These factors
characterize the participation process in relation to participants and can be influenced by
enhancing the social and human capital of the participants. These factors included: the role of
village organizations; community leadership; culture, values, and tradition; household, family,
and kinship networks; ethnicity; gender; education and literacy; economic status and
employment; skills and knowledge; and willingness to participate.
The processes affecting participation is considered by looking at the interface between
local government, village politics, the village community and organizations introducing and
furthering participatory approaches.

3 Evaluation of empowerment process

To understand the extent to which participatory process for tsunami-affected community
achieves its goal to empower the community, then the process needs to be evaluated.
However, efforts to evaluate participatory process have been sparse (Rowe and Frewer 2004;
Rowe, Marsh et al. 2004). For the purpose of this study, criteria and definitions of effective
empowerment process are derived from the three stages of empowerment process, i.e.
position, conscientization, then political action and change (Carr 2003).
2
 Figure 1: Criteria and definitions of effective empowerment process (Carr 2003)

Criteria Definitions
I. Position The community is capable to identify their misery as an ‘origin position’ to move
forward.

II. Conscientization The community is capable to identify the causes of the misery, and uncover the
political roots of people’s individual experiences from that misery.
a) interpretation The community is capable to identify common conditions and interpret the effect
of those conditions and thereby become critically aware of their relation to
the environment and political realities.
The community share their experiences, feelings, and ways of naming which
resulting to the expansion of the range of knowledge.
The community grasp the political interpretation through the given range of
knowledge at a particular historical juncture.
b) Identity The community enable to create and re-create provisional identities through
political interpretation.
The community enable to reflect a new range of options for identification.
c) Mobilization The community enable to reflect a new range of options for action and a new
investment in collaborative action.

III. Political action and In the case of community ‘failed’ action, the community enable to collectively
change reflect on the new generated understandings of themselves and their
circumstances
There is a result in societal and personal change, in term of the community’s
ontological position and self-conceptions.

However, empowerment is not an autonomous practice that happens by itself; it must be

facilitated, guided, and supervised in order to bring about the desired result. For that reason,
effective facilitation is suggested to be assessed through the achievement of performing the
five fundamental purposes of facilitation (Triantafillou and Nielsen 2001).

Figure 2: Criteria and definitions of effective facilitation process

(Triantafillou and Nielsen 2001)

Criteria
‘hand over the stick’
Installation of self-critical awareness
invoking personal responsibility
introducing new modes of communication
communicating a reflexive capacity to the
target groups
Definitions
the locals must be shown concretely how to conduct investigations,
analyses, presentations of themselves in order to learn about
themselves
facilitators must openly show how one continuously and critically
examines one’s own behaviour
the facilitator must show how intuition can work in practice according to
the principle: Use your best judgement at all times
facilitators must work to open up new ways of sharing information and
ideas between local people and developers;
facilitators help the community to help themselves after the facilitators
have left

4 The Recovery effort: Participatory village planning

Participation as an approach in recovery processes in Aceh and Nias, was endorsed by
Presidential Decree 30/2005 of the Republic of Indonesia, namely the Blue Print of Aceh and

3
Nias rehabilitation and reconstruction. In that Blue Print it is also clearly stated that
reconstruction “... includes spatial planning”.
To speed up the reconstruction, spatial planning process is conducted parallel at various
levels, from village to provincial levels; from general spatial plans to detailed and technical
plans. The reason for conducting spatial planning simultaneously, among other things, is the
need to accelerate the reconstruction process to effectively use the limited available time.

Figure 3: Spatial planning at various levels

Concerning these two legal directions, i.e. the need for spatial planning and for a
participatory rehabilitation and reconstruction, there are at least documents and publications
which taken a participatory spatial planning approach 1. In addition, reconstruction also has
been accelerated by the condition of Aceh province which was in armed conflict between
separatist movement2 and national government for almost 30 years before the peace accord
was signed in August 2005. This conflict contributed to the nearly paralyzed of the provincial
and district/city governments all over the province for the fire engagements and fears. In
short, tsunami made none but worsened the existing situation.
In Banda Aceh city, there are 52 villages3 affected by tsunami, and among them, 39
villages4 were planned. This 39 villages mostly located in coastal areas where the heaviest
destruction took place. For the process of village plan making, BRR provides a Village
Planning Guidelines for all parties who participate in the plan-making. “These guidelines are
expected to guide all concerns parties in the making of better settlements” (BRR 2006). The
guidelines consists of a number of planning activities need to be carried out according to the
number of proposed houses to be reconstructed. “...these guidelines also suggest steps to be
taken to enable the planned settlements meet the expectations of the people” (BRR 2006).

1
See, for instance, BRR. 2009. Direktori Dokumen Produk Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi Bidang Penataan Ruang. Banda
Aceh.
2
Known as National Liberation Front of Acheh Sumatra (also known as GAM).
3
Identification of disaster-affected villages is derived from superimposing three sources ‘level of damage’ data, i.e. the Blue
Print of Aceh and Nias rehabilitation and reconstruction, the Map Frame, and the Study on the Urgent R/R Plan for Banda
Aceh-JICA.
4
Number of plans which reported accomplished to BRR, by various agencies that carried out the village planning processes.
4
 The goals of participatory village-plan making in post-disaster areas are mainly for
facilitating implementation in the context of recovery. Up to four years after the tsunami,
evidence of both physical reconstruction and participatory planning processes may be
obvious. However, since it assumed that participatory process empowered the affected-
community, therefore this paper is intended to identify determining factors which enhance the
community in empowerment process.
Considering participatory approach starting from village level, this study particularly
examines participation in village-plan making, which the approach is directly to individuals,
as member-of-community, and the community itself, as-a-whole.

Figure 4: Participatory village planning process

Figure 5:
Banda Aceh, immediately after tsunami struck (2005) and after reconstruction (2007)

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5 Methodology
The data in this paper is based on a survey study which was collected through
questionnaire. The respondents were tsunami–affected individuals who actively involved in
participatory village planning process in their own village. Sampling processes of the
respondents were through multi-stage cluster sampling and snowball sampling.
Among those 39 planned-villages, there were 18 villages which were most-destroyed.
These villages—categorized as ‘inundated-village’ for the purpose of this study—were
villages which part of the land sank to the sea, and the rest of the land mostly covered with
sea water with buildings on it destroyed and swept away by tsunami.
Each of these 18
inundated-villages was Figure 6: Satellite image of an inundated village in Banda Aceh,
planned by using one before and after tsunami struck
among five village
planning methods used in
Banda Aceh city.
However, they were only
four planning methods
which carried out in
participatory process.
These four methods then
were carried out for 12
villages’ plan-making
processes.
The sample of
village for each of the
four planning methods was determined by multi-stage considerations, i.e. the most
completeness of proceedings of participation process, the availability of record of
participants’ involvement (attendance list, pictures, and written names), the highest number of
community meetings carried out, and the highest number of participated-individuals.

5.1 Questionnaire
References for evaluating facilitation and empowerment derived from goals of
empowerment and facilitation processes postulated by Triantafillou and Nielsen, as well as
Carr (Triantafillou and Nielsen 2001; Carr 2003). The questionnaire and interviews,
completed by participants and administered face-to-face, consists of three topics for personal
information, and two topics for the evaluation of facilitation process and empowerment. Each
evaluation topic has several questions which addressing similar concept.
Rating scales used to measure the items on the questionnaire, is to indicate the
respondetns’ level of agreement or disagreement on a five-point scale running from ‘Sangat
Setuju’ (strongly agree) to ‘Sangat Tidak Setuju’ (strongly disagree).

6
 Figure 7:
No. of questions for each topic in the questionnaire
No. Description No. of There was a middle point on the scale that
quest.
allowed for a neutral response (‘Abstain’), and
Personal Information of respondent
1. General Information 8 one point for ‘Don’t remember’ option.
2. Involvement 2
3. Availability for interview 1
Facilitation and Empowerment
1. Facilitation 22
2. Empowerment 12
Total Questions 45

5.2 Respondents
Total number of respondents is 40 individuals; consist of 27 males and 13 females. These 40
respondents are in the range of age 29-65 years old, with length of occupancy in the village is
between 6-63 years.

Table 1: General information of respondents

Length of occupancy
No. Gender Age
Village in the village Interviewed
Respondents
Male Female 29-41 42-54 55-67 5-24 25-44 45-64
Cot Lamkuweueh 8 7 1 3 3 2 2 4 2 6
Deah Glumpang 8 7 1 6 - 2 2 5 1 8
Punge Blang Cut 14 11 3 2 7 5 3 4 7 11
Lampulo 10 2 8 7 2 1 3 7 - 8
40 27 13 18 12 10 10 20 10 33

Positions of respondents are divided into three, i.e. village committee, influencing
villager, and community member. The occupations of respondents are divided into four
groups, i.e. government officer, private business, retirement, and housewife.

Table 2: Respondents occupations and positions in the village

Position Occupation
No.
Village Village Influencing Community Gov't Private Retire- House-
Respondents
committee villager member officer business ment wife
Cot Lamkuweueh 8 4 1 3 2 5 - 1
Deah Glumpang 8 4 4 - 1 7 - -
Punge Blang Cut 14 6 3 5 6 1 4 3
Lampulo 10 4 - 6 1 1 1 7
40 18 8 14 10 14 5 11

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6 Analysis and Discussion
All questions for topics of empowerment and facilitation are measured in five-scale
rating. For the analysis purpose of this paper, scales of ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ are
grouped together to be labelled ‘agree’. The other scales, i.e. ‘strongly disagree’, ‘disagree’,
‘abstain’, and ‘don’t know’ option will be grouped together and mentioned by ‘disagree and
uncertain’.

6.1 Empowerment results

The questions in empowerment topic are divided into three sub-topics, i.e.
Interpretation, Identity, and Mobilization.
Interpretation sub-topic is intended to obtain information whether the affected-
communities are capable to interpret their positions and relationships in society. Responses of
participants to these questions are mostly positive.
However, 30% of respondents
were disagreed and uncertain whether Figure 8: Result of Interpretation
the community capable to identify Interpretation Agree
the causes of the misery and be 1 The community is capable to identify the causes of the misery 70.0%
and be aware to the consequences
aware to the consequences. This, in
2 With that awareness, the community is capable to interpret 83.3%
fact reasonable, since the stressor, in
the effect of those conditions and thereby become critically
this case tsunami, was unknown- aware of their relation to the environment and political
unknown (‘unknown’ what it is, and realities
‘unknown’ what the consequences 3 The community encouraged to share their experiences, 93.3%
are until the stressor came). feelings, and ways of naming in togetherness

The Starting point for 4 The sharing process resulting to the expansion of the range of 96.7%
knowledge and deepen the awareness of each member of
successful interpretation was the community to what will be faced in the future
community’s belief in God and their
faith in God’s will and power; which strongly exist in Acehnese community. Experience from
Cot Lamkuweueh village, mentioned by The Chief, Mr. Zulisman:
“Yes, indeed we were in great sadness. However, no need for us to remember that
sadness. We need to perceive that this happened because of God, and accept the
fact that we had nothing left. We would better start thinking how to continue our
life”.

Overall, the respondents convinced that the affected-individuals succeeded in joining

with others to identify common condition and interpret the effect of those conditions and
thereby become critically aware of their relation to the environment, especially to the realities
they faced.

Identity sub-topic is intended

Figure 9: Result of Identity to obtain information whether the
Identity Agree affected-communities are capable to
1 With those knowledge and awareness, community understood 93.3%
create and/or recreate an identity in
their identities
relation to their environment, and
2 With the understanding of their identities, each member of 96.6%
community had options to be active of passive in the planning effecting social change. Responses of
process participants to these questions are
8
also convincing. Through the interpretative process of the condition as tsunami-affected
communities, provisional identities are created and recreated. Mr. Samsul Bahri and Mr.
Lukman from Cot Lamkuewueh village had same ideas on it:
“...facilitators’ relentless efforts to motivate community to do reconstruction raised
our hope to start a new life; this also raised our awareness of the importance of
having houses (again)...”

Mobilization sub-topic is Figure 10: Result of Mobilization

intended to obtain information Mobilization Agree
whether through interpretation and 1 the community enable to create range of options for action 80.0%

identity new range of options for 2 The planning process caused improvement in community 90.0%
living
identification and action, as well as a
3 The planning process not caused any improvement on each 13.3%
new investment in collaborative member of community, in regards to one's personal identity
action emerged in communities. 4 From this process, community enable to be aware of 90.0%
Responses to these questions are government supports for the development of the village
mostly positive. 5 By participating in the process, the community then more 86.7%
Experience from Cot capable to re-consider the reconstruction activities they had
been carried out
Lamkueweuh village, explained by
6 With conducting re-consideration, the community discovered 86.7%
Mr. Samsul Bahri:
new understanding on their individual identities and on the
“We had freedom to determine what to condition of village
develop first. At that time, the options
were either to develop houses or road. Facilitated by facilitators, we discussed, argued,
and reached the decision by our own. Though sometimes we found that our decisions
were not fully ideal, but we learnt something.”

The scheme of recovery programme offered by the NGO is another key factor for
community enhancement. In Cot Lamkuweueh village, for example, the scheme consisted of:
encouraging affected-community to return to the village and providing materials for the
community to build their temporary shelters in the village by their own. During the
construction of the shelters, the NGO provided basic needs (meals, electricity, and clean
water) and gave daily-basis living allowance for the community.
Regular meetings with community also carried out during the shelters construction, in
effort to keep up their spirit and develop their enthusiasm. In these regular meetings with
community, the empowerment was begun. In addition, after the temporary shelters
constructed and the community had moved to the shelters, they started to be employed for the
next three months in ‘Cash for Work’ programme, which was held by another NGO. In this
programme, the community was occupied to collect debris from their village and paid in daily
basis. Mr. Samsul Bahri found these activities advantaged them. He said:
“These activities advantaged us in many ways. First, we had cash in our pocket.
Second, our land was clear from debris which in turn ready to be built.
However, the most important thing is we were healed from our grief.”

For the empowerment depends on how it was facilitated, then it is needed to learn
responses of respondents on facilitation process.

9
 6.2 Facilitation results
Questions in facilitation topic are divided into five sub-topics, i.e. Self-facilitation
exercises, Installation of self-critical awareness, Invoking personal responsibility, Introducing
new modes of communication, and Reflective capacity.
Self-facilitation exercises sub-topic is intended to obtain information whether by
facilitation the community knew how to conduct investigations, analyses, presentations of
themselves in order to learn about their own-selves. Responses of participants to these
questions are mostly positive. In this case, the respondents were completely convinced that
they are able to facilitate themselves.
In tsunami affected-villages, facilitation had been started since the affected-
communities were gathered in emergency camps. First task of facilitators was to encourage
the communities to return to their villages and continue their life. From the interviews, it was
clear that determined influencing-members of community were one of key factors in
encouraging other members to start thinking to return to their villages.
Mr. Samsul Bahri, member
of Cot Lamkuweueh village, said: Figure 11: Result of Self-facilitation exercises
“Our culture is to help each other. Self-facilitation exercises Agree
Although after tsunami, some of our 1 The community was enforced to be capable to identify 93.3%
people were in great trauma, which problems related to village planning
made they thought and acted 2 Facilitators encouraged the community to identify causes of 93.4%
differently; nonetheless, we tried our the problems and be aware to the consequences of the
best to remind them that we have our problems to their life
own land from our parents which we 3 The community has comprehensive pictures about village and 93.3%
have to maintain. At the end, we could community problems, as well as the consequences to them
embrace them to be part of us who 4 At the end, the community capable to explain about village 96.6%
wanted to return to our village”. problems, the causes, and the consequences, internally or
externally

Installation of self-critical Figure 12: Result of Installation self-critical awareness

awareness sub-topic is to indentify Installation of self-critical awareness Agree
whether by facilitation the 1 The community successful to identify self-weaknesses 86.7%
communities know how to 2 The community was capable to discuss the reasons and 70.0%
continuously and critically examine causes of the weaknesses

their own behaviour. Responses of
participants to these questions are
mostly positive.
Chief Zulisman, chief of
village Cot Lamkuweueh, stated
that:
3 By discussion, the community successful to attain ways to 76.7%
address the weaknesses
4 The community believed that by continuously examine the 100.0%
weaknesses and keep trying to attain ways to address them,
would enhance community's life
5 The community ready to be critically examined by others for 96.7%
the sake of community betterment

“We were aware of our weaknesses. Even though there were arguments among us
on particular issues, we always reached agreements to address them. This is
because we always discussed all issues in community meetings. Furthermore, as a
village chief, I am receptive and should be ready to be critically examined and
complained by my community”.
10
However, 30% of the respondents were disagreed and uncertain whether the community was
capable to discuss the reasons and causes of the weaknesses. Experience from Punge Blang
Cut village illustrates this, as mentioned by Mr. Irawa Kusuma:
“...I heard there were efforts to review (unaccepted) reconstruction process. But it
seemed there was no followed-up. In my opinion, the community could not merely
blame the facilitators. It should be an urge for the community to get involved and
has initiatives in the process. If the community actively involved, it would be
difficult for others to play dirty tricks.”

Invoking personal responsibility sub-topic is to identify whether the facilitators shown how
intuition can work in practice, by using communities best judgement at all times. Responses
of participants are quite convincing.
From Cot Lamkueweuh
village, Mr. Lukman shared his Figure 13: Result of Invoking personal responsibility
experience and said: Invoking personal responsibility Agree
“We had been fully trusted by the 1 Facilitators encouraged the community to take more self- 96.6%
donor to reconstruct our houses; as responsibility than to fully rely on outsiders
long as the specification of 2 Facilitators encouraged the community to more using 96.6%
earthquake resistant-housing they common senses/best judgement in making decisions
endorsed was followed. The 3 Through planning experience, the community realized that 80.0%
facilitators kept telling us that the they were capable to make best decision for the village
development is for community; built without relying to outsiders
by community, quality controlled by
4 Facilitators encouraged the community to be capable to 83.3%
community. Thus we called it:
consider and make best decisions for village, without merely
community-leading reconstruction.”
rely on outsiders
He then continued:
5 The community is capable to take responsibility for their own 86.7%
“...the intensive meetings we had with decisions
facilitators motivated us and made us
believed that we were capable to implement the reconstruction, though we were still in
trauma...”

In addition, Mr. Samsul Bahri explained more on facilitators’ practice to invoke

personal responsibility:
“...in reconstruction of our houses, we were given opportunities to select and bring
construction materials from the warehouse. The responsibility for the adequate and
good quality supply of construction materials was in the hand of the house owner.
We did it enthusiastically, since the reconstruction of our houses was in line with
what we expected from the donor.”

Chief of village then stated his resume:

“...in principle, we have to be a self-contained community. Our relationship to
outsiders is not to ask for safeguard, but to listen and consider their advice and
learn something from them”.

In Cot Lamkuweueh village, for making the effort of ‘invoking personal responsibility’
achievable, the existing donor’s facilitators made an agreement with the community that if there were
any other donors wanted to support the village, they were required to coordinate with existing
facilitators. This to make sure that the efforts to ‘enhance the community’ was maintained.

11
 One interesting factor was pointed out by Mr. Rusmaizar from Deah Glumpang village.
He stated that,
“...the confidence of affluent members-of-community to rebuild the village was
restored at the earliest. Facilitators motivated and encouraged these members. The
motivation and encouragement then passed on to other members of community, in
effort to restore and boost all members’ confidence to rebuild our village.”

However, 20% of respondents disagreed and were uncertain whether through planning
experience the community then capable to make best decision for the village without relying
to outsiders. In fact, the efforts of facilitators on community enhancement would be
unproductive if the affected-individuals and community not prepared to carry out their own
recovery activities. In this case the community-based housing reconstruction.
Experience from Punge Blang Cut village provided the evidence for this. For example,
Mr. Ahmad Murtala confirmed that the facilitators did their efforts to encourage community
to use common sense and their own best judgement. Furthermore, he explained:
“...we were depressed at that moment. The facilitators motivated us to revive and
involve in the reconstruction process; and not merely depended on them. However,
we did not have fully faith in it, since we were still in trauma and some of us got
serious mental- disorder.”

The failure of facilitators in encouraging the community to be capable to consider and

make best decisions was reflected from Mr. Murtala explaination:
“...most of us had negative temperament and hardly had good sense, at that time.
Though there were many intelligent people (live in this village), but all of us felt so
down. We still confused what to do.”
Mr. Irawa Kusuma shared his opinion:
“...the affected-individuals in this village generally prefer the houses were fully-
prepared for them and ready-to-be-occupied. This is a problem. They were not
concerned to monitor the reconstruction of their houses, but when the
reconstruction accomplished, they started to complain”.
He added,
“This was because the community was not involved in monitoring the
reconstruction process”.
Mr. Ahmad Murtala explained the justification for this:
“...the affected-individuals were mostly still lived in the emergency camps
(barracks), which were far away from our village. Transportation was rare at that
time. They knew their houses would be reconstructed, but, since they were not
around when the programme was carried out, they not fully understood the
dynamic of the situation when they visited the village...’

The milestone of recovery process preparation for affected-community is to bring the

community back to their village. Once the community returned, facilitators can start to ‘learn’
the community to determine suitable approaches to encourage togetherness among members
of community to reach agreement on what to do and how to do the reconstruction.
The next step is to help them to recover from trauma by encouraging their active
involvement in planning and implementation of their own houses.

12
 However, returning the community means making sufficient temporary shelters
available in their village and providing basic needs for particular period of time. Donors need
to bear this in mind and ideally start their support from this point.

Introducing new modes of communication sub-topic is to obtain information whether

facilitators opened up new ways of sharing information and ideas between local people and
developers. Responses of participants are mostly positive.
However, 20% of respondents were
Figure 14: disagreed and uncertain whether
Result of Introducing new modes of communication community has successfully utilized
Introducing new modes of communication Agree those new modes to communicate
1 The community was introduced various new modes of 86.7% with other parties. Overall, it may
communication, which were carried out for the first time in
the village
say that facilitators succeeded to
2 The new modes of communication is a better ways to share 86.6%
open up new ways of sharing
information and ideas among community itself and between information and ideas between local
community with other parties people and developers.
3 Communication during the planning process was easy since 83.3% According to Chief Zulisman,
the process of sharing information and ideas run smoothly
“...in the beginning, the facilitators did
4 The smooth running of communication was due to the 86.6% not utilize computer, but only flip chart
application of new modes of communication which was to sketch. However, during the process
introduced by facilitators they use computer as well. We utilized
5 After the planning process, community has successfully 80.0% this mode of communication to
utilized those new modes to communicate with other parties communicate among village
committees”.

Mr. T. Haflisyah from Punge Bland Cut village explained:

‘...the facilitators approached the chief and influencing people in our village, then
they invited the affected-community to the meeting they held in our mosque. They
provided us drawing instruments to design the houses we hope for...’
Then he added:
“The community, village committees, and influencing people in this village
attended the meeting and drawn together. However, at the end, the reconstructed-
houses were based on the design provided by the donor.”

Reflective capacity sub-topic is to identify whether facilitators help the community to help
themselves after facilitators have left.
what we need to highlight in this result Figure 15: Result of Reflective capacity
is that among the positive agreements Reflective capacity Agree
1 The planning process at the end has formed the basis for 83.3%
gave to previous questions, half of
strengthening the community to be self-help in the next
the respondents admitted that the reconstruction processes
capability of community was not 2 The facilitators has prepared the community to help 80.0%
convincing in order to organize themselves after the facilitators have left
themselves to carry out next 3 It is not convincing whether the community capable to 50.0%
reconstruction processes without organize themselves to carry out the next reconstruction
processes without facilitators assistance
assistance from facilitators.

13
 However, positive comment given by Chief of Deah Glumpang village who explained
that:
“...the facilitation provided by the NGO had enhanced the community’s and my
knowledge. We became to understand code of conduct to perform activities to
attain better result...even for community members who have low level of
education—the experience broadened their horizons.”

In the case when inconsistency still occurred between planning and implementation,
community enhancement will never be reached due to all the reconstruction actors occupied
to deal with complicated problems arisen as the result of the inconsistency. Experience in
Punge Blang Cut village gave example for this.
Mr. Irawa Kusuma admitted that facilitation process was accepted. However, he
highlighted that the decisions reached during community meetings were disregarded in the
implementation. For this situation, he explained:
“...all steps for facilitation were carried out by facilitators. Their programme was
good; their approach to us was also good. But, the implementation was not
consistent with the agreement we reached in the meetings. “
He added:
“...I thought this was a complicated problem (of this village). I was not sure the
facilitators had the courage to break the agreement. There should be interventions
(from village authorities)....”
Then he gave example:
“...there was once the community agreed on houses built for prioritized affected-
individuals first. Then if the budget was still available, houses for affected-families
who have spare land or have extended families were accepted to be built. However,
the implementation was disappointing. People in power in this village were greedy
for houses (for their own family, relatives, or friends). They influenced the
facilitators to break the agreement. No wonder, at the end, other members of
community followed their action.”

Mr. Ahmad Murtala explained the motives on why a number of affected-individuals

required more than one houses. Besides he agreed that there was greediness, he also added
that:
“...for community in Aceh, a house at least has three bedrooms; for parents, sons,
and daughters. The house from donor only has two bedrooms. This was the reason
why some of us asked for the second houses. For people who asked for the third
and so forth houses, it was possibly because they have extended family...”

In facilitation process, facilitators could not merely depend on village-committees’

information and judgement. If the aim of facilitation is for community enhancement,
facilitators’ awareness of ‘political’ dynamic in the village play significant role in determining
type of approaches to be utilized or adjusting their current approaches to bring fairness for all
members of community.
Mr. T. Haflisyah from Punge Blang Cut village gave example and shared his opinion:
“...in our community meeting, we agreed to prioritize the poor and widows to
obtain the reconstructed houses first. But, in the implementation, the agreement
was not followed. It was only the ones who had closed-relationship with the
decision makers who obtained the houses first.”
14
Then he added:
“The donor and facilitators were not involved in prioritizing process. They fully
trusted and relied on village committees (to prioritize and provided them the list of
beneficiaries). This resulted conflict (in community). However, I did not blame the
donor or facilitators, because they could not be involved too far to our internal
issues...”

Ultimately, village leadership play critical role in developing support, ensuring the
smooth-running, and encouraging acceptance of the participatory process in the village.
However, once members of community have doubt on their leaders’ honesty, conflict of
interests will be occurred and participation is only for tokenism or none.
In summary, in the context of recovery efforts, facilitation process was succeeded to
achieve the goal was set for it, i.e. encouraging active involvement of community in plan-
making process for the implementation of reconstruction. However, the 13-50% range of
disagreement and uncertainty on a number of issues in facilitation process shows that the
processes was not fully succeeded if the aim of recovery efforts is for community
enhancement and developing resilient community. It is convincing that longer time and
strategic participatory arrangement are needed to facilitate the community to be more
empowered reaching satisfactory level of enhancement toward disaster-resilient community.

7 Conclusions
Returning the affected-community to their village is an essential precondition for
community enhancement. Encouraging the community to face the fact of what they have lost
and what they still possess, is the first step to encourage them to continue their life. Religion,
culture, values, and tradition of community play major role in this effort.
Furthermore, determining factors toward enhancement of tsunami-affected community
mentioned by respondents above may be identified from four sources, i.e. chief of village,
donor, and member-of community. Each of these sources shares similar scale of importance,
and has its own determining factors.
The first and foremost source of determining factors comes from chief of village. The
chief needs to:
 Have a vision, a mindset toward betterment of the village—physically, socially, and
economically.
 Be honest, to work for the sake of most needed affected-individuals and reconstruction
of village.
 Be fair, to every member-of-community.
 Share power, to all reliable individuals in the village according to their capacities.
 Endorse community agreement, as the decision/policy of the village.
 Obey and enforce village decisions/policies.
 Open, for suggestions—especially from outsiders; and complaints—especially from
the community.

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 The second source is donor agency. Donor may be seen from two points of view, i.e. its
policies and its appointed facilitators.
Donor’s policies are divided into three points, i.e. policies on:
 Degree of participation
Donor needs to impose highest degree of participation that could be achieved, by
responding to community needs and capacities.
 Methodology of participation
Donor needs to be flexible on deciding suitable methodology to be utilized which
depends on actual situation on the ground.
 Project funding
Donor needs to be flexible to adjust and re-adjust estimated budget due to the dynamic
of village.

Donor’s appointed facilitators need to be:

 Tough, strong enough to deal with difficult conditions or situations and prepared for
the worst response or tricks from community.
 Honest and determined, in facilitating the community appropriately.
 Skilful to approach and motivate traumatic community.
 Skilful to ‘quick-reading and learning’ political dynamic in community then identify
key persons in community.
 Skilful to negotiate.
 Highly qualified in his/her technical field.
 Innovative.

The third source is member-of-community. The traumatic affected-individuals need to be:

 Prepared and motivated, have peace in mind to start reconstruction process, and at the
end to continue their life. Accordingly, at least, adequate temporary shelters, basic
needs, and cash, need to be provided.
 Involved in decision making process.
 Given overall responsibility on the reconstruction of their houses, if possible.
 Given trust in performing the responsibility above.
 Given opportunity to complain and provide alternatives.

Determining factors identified here are not a panacea for the complexity of community
participation, since community enhancement is gained in the process of participation, where
all these factors influencing and shaping each others at every turn, in a complex situation.
However, these factors are expected to be utilized by all parties, including communities,
donors, and practitioners; to get prepared, able to ‘read’ the situation on the ground, and act
accordingly.
However, social and human capitals of community have not been included in this
analysis. These capitals, in fact, play significant role in community enhancement. Future
study needs to include these capitals to obtain comprehensive picture of determining factors
toward enhancement of disaster-affected community.

16
Acknowledgments
The field work of this research is supported by the Universiti Sains Malaysia through
Postgraduate Research Grant Scheme (USM-RU-P GRS) 2009, account no.
1001/PPBGN/832062.

17
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