A colleague of mine came back from Aceh 6 weeks ago and gave a very sobering run-down of the situation:

1) Our colleagues in local NGOs are themselves victims of the Tsunami. They survived but witnessed incredible horrors or lost someone close, in some cases their family members. Their lives are turned upside down and they are at the process of finding a way to cope with the tragedy. So the development community needs to be patient and allow them time and space to recover in order to for them to continue their work.

2) Development community needs to give control of relief funds to local communities and let them make the choices they wish even if we might view them as wrong (for example many local NGOs, even those that have nothing to do with health, wanted to set up medical mobile units; my colleague found this confusing as they had no expertise in this area). We should be there to support them all the way through. That means help them with the knowledge, experience and funds we have, not pushing them, standing in judgment or insisting on our own ideas.

Branislava Milosevic, London, UK