Lava spewed high into the sky. Thick clouds of ash hung over nearby villages. Ash rained down on homes hundreds of miles away. The death toll has exceeded 250, and there are almost 350,000 refugees. Mount Merapi has shaken Indonesia.
“The number of refugees and the magnitude of the volcano explosions have gone beyond anyone’s anticipation, and there is a huge deficit of supplies—any supplies,” wrote Chandra Kirana Prijosusilo, Greengrants Alliance of Funds Coordinator for the Samdhana Institute.
Mount Merapi is Indonesia’s most active volcano, erupting about every 4 years. This year the activity has been much worse than usual, and the latest eruption in early November has left a trail of destruction in central Java. Disaster relief is needed: crops have suffocated under a thick layer of ash and can’t be harvested, leaving families without food to eat as they clear their buried houses. As refugees return home, recovery will be a significant challenge.
Global Greengrants Fund responded immediately to this disaster by providing $5,000 in emergency funding to the region. A fifth of this funding went to Kerabat Kota Jogja Mobile Clinic to provide urgent medical relief by traveling to refugee camps and setting up ‘health posts’. The Mobile Clinic is overseen by a Dr. Agus, who normally runs a dentist clinic on wheels for street kids in the poor district of Jogja, a town near Mount Merapi. He and other medical doctors are volunteering their time and skills to help refugees, while his wife, Tami, has been cooking with neighboring women 500 meals a day to feed displaced families. These community-based initiatives are reaching those in need, but grassroots recovery efforts need more support. You can help.