UNICEF starts first of 500 schools in tsunami-battered area of Indonesia

Workmen have started to dig the foundations for the first two of the 500 permanent schools that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will either build or repair in the tsunami-devastated Aceh and North Sumatra areas of Indonesia in a $90 million project.

Bulldozers, excavators and other heavy equipment will arrive in the next few days, UNICEF said. The workers will pack the foundation stones, sand, cement and dirt as the teams build 300 new schools. Another 200 badly damaged schools will be repaired.

The first schools to be built – Muhammadiyah 1 & 2, in Merduati, Banda Aceh – will each have six classrooms and, responding to requests from the local community, share a library, laboratory, multi-purpose hall, canteen and sports court. They will also be “child-friendly,” providing safe drinking water, separate toilets for boys and girls, basins for hand-washing and access for the disabled.

UNICEF said it contracted out this building project to UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and it is different from an earlier UNICEF project to build 200 temporary schools in Aceh and North Sumatra.