Asia is one of the most disaster-hit regions in the world, with floods, cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. Unplanned urbanization, a steep increase in population, depleting forest green cover, and environmental degradation trigger the most severity and complexity.
The impacts are on the day-to-day lives of people, affecting their resources and disrupting earning sources, and delays in service delivery, poor health status, and loss of assets contributing significantly to acute food insecurity, inadequate access to safe water, sanitation, and hygienic conditions, loss of shelter, and settlements with increased health care risks.
Attendees of the humanitarian response training in Sidhikalang, Indonesia
Women and girls are always disproportionately affected, as in most disasters, loss to women/girls’ lives is greater. Lack of opportunities to learn, poor access to engage in the planning process, lack of care at the family level, gender-based violence(GBV), discrimination to exercise their human rights in different platforms, and overall recognition of gender roles in nation-building initiatives, increase their exposure to disasters. In our counts of countries in Asia that are hit by disasters every year, Indonesia is always in the news due to high frequency and multiple occurrences of hydro-geo-meteorological hazards.
As these recurring events target communities multiple times, it is very difficult for people to recover their losses and improve their resilience. Without strategic support, it becomes more challenging for the communities to plan for their future needs. When a disaster strikes in Indonesia, it depletes economic assets and breaks the sociocultural fabric of the society.
Subhashis Roy and Chandran Martin teaching in Sidhikalang, Indonesia
In such difficult situations where we witness the loss of life, livelihood, infrastructure, household assets, and environment, the role of Lutheran Churches in Indonesia has been widened being first responders to disasters. Lutheran Churches are strategically placed to address “people in need.” High risk with low coping capacity makes Indonesia more exposed to disasters and demands a strategic move to increase resilience toward disaster impacts.
Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR) is one unique flagship program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America(ELCA) that contributes to global, regional and national efforts in reducing the suffering and enhancing accountability for those affected by disasters.
Attendees from the humanitarian response training in Mentawai, Indonesia
ELCA acknowledges the role of Lutheran churches in Indonesia in saving lives, spiritual care, and leading life with dignity. Recognizing the role of Lutheran Churches in Indonesia, the ELCA contributes to increasing capacity through its multi-faceted and multi-sectoral support that help ELCA companion churches and ecumenical partners response to immediate and medium-term needs and spreads God’s love to people most in need.
Since 2023, ELCA has been accompanying the Komite Nasional Lutheran World Federation (KNLWF) in Indonesia to reach some of the most remote areas and increase their capacity to prevent, prepare, mitigate, recover, and build back better from disasters. In this journey, a successful accompaniment model has emerged that truly shares, learns, spreads, and transfers knowledge and resources for people to recover early. Based on the positive feedback and recognition of ELCA-supported capacity-building events in Indonesia, ELCA-KNLWF organized the 2nd phase of the training events in November 2024 in the Sidhikalang and Mentawai islands of Indonesia. More than 40 participants have actively engaged in such sharing and learning events.
Participants expressed very positive and overwhelming views on the significance of such events and preparing church members with tools and techniques that ease their role in disaster management.
