UNICEF opens new permanent schools in tsunami-ravaged Indonesia

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has opened the first two of nearly 370 permanent schools it has agreed to build in Indonesia in a $90-million project to replace those destroyed nearly two years ago by the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, an agency spokesman announced today.

The schools in Aceh and Nias in Sumatra, the area worst hit by the 26 December, 2004, earthquake and ensuing tsunami, will set new standards in child-friendly design and quake resistance and can serve as a model in other disaster areas such as northwest Pakistan, devastated by a quake last year, UNICEF spokesman Michael Bociurkiw told a news briefing in Geneva.

The new schools were officially opened yesterday. The full project for 367 permanent schools is expected to take at least three years to complete.

Each school will have safe drinking water, separate toilets for boys and girls and access for the disabled, among other facilities.

The basic design incorporates six classrooms, toilets with wash basins, an office for teachers, landscaped outdoor play areas, and internal sliding walls between classrooms to allow teachers and the community to form a multi-purpose school hall or assembly room, the agency reported in its latest update.

Immediately after the disaster, which left around 200,000 people dead or missing, and more than half a million others homeless in Sumatra, UNICEF started distributing tent schools to ensure that children could continue their schooling as soon as possible.

More than 1,000 school tents have been distributed benefiting 66,760 children as an interim measure. Nearly 1,150 schools were completely destroyed or severely damaged by the quake and tsunami, including 110 kindergartens, 725 elementary schools and 272 junior and senior high schools.