The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted August 17, 2009, 7:29 am by Roger Burks

Peace and clean on Independence Day

Saiful, age 7 (right) runs harder to keep pace in a Mercy Corps-sponsored activity. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Urimessing — a poor neighborhood in Ambon, the biggest city in Indonesia's remote Maluku Islands — suffered like so many other areas hit hard by Maluku's inter-communal conflict. From 1999 to 2003, fighting between groups of Christians and Muslims destroyed thousands of houses, killed thousands and displaced at least half a million people.

This Muslim neighborhood witnessed its population triple over the course of just a few weeks during those turbulent times, as displaced families poured into its narrow alleyways to seek refuge from the violence. Overcrowding resulted. Sanitation suffered. The environment seemed forever spoiled from garbage and other waste clogging the streets and streams.

Late last year, Mercy Corps began helping residents clean up. Our Water and Environmental Sanitation (WES) project is working in 32 neighborhoods affected by conflict and its aftermath. And today — on Indonesia's Independence Day — children and their families are celebrating a tidier Urimessing.

Laribatu is the name of a children's game played on Independence Day, involving kids running back and forth, transferring objects from place to place. But today, the game has been transformed into Laribuang Sampah — which means "run to throw the garbage away" — as a lesson about the importance of putting litter in its proper place, garbage cans.

One of the participants is 7-year-old Saiful, who's made the finals of the race. Out of breath, he tells us what he likes most about living in Urimessing.

"I am very proud my neighborhood is clean," he smiles.

Independence Day is an occasion for all Indonesians to be proud of their beautiful and diverse country. But in small places like Urimessing, beset by a recent conflict and the challenges that followed, there seem to be even more reasons to celebrate.