Partnership between Aceh and Taiwan Community

Aceh is a special territory of Indonesia. Its current official name is Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. Past spellings of its name include Acheh, Atjeh and Achin. Aceh is a province in the corner of Sumatra Island, lay on equatorial line, the area is 57.365.57 km² with tropical climate. The area included 119 islands, 35 mounts, 73 rivers. Aceh has 21 Regencies, 228 sub districts, 5947 villages with 4.297.485 people.

Syiah Kuala University is the best University in Aceh. Syiah Kuala University consist of nine faculties, they are Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Medical, Animal Study, Engineering, Social and Political, Economical, Agricultural, Law, and Education. In Education Faculty they produce teachers and then send them to rural area in Aceh Province.

In December 26, 2004 Tsunami and earth quake hit Aceh. At that time more than 160.000 people dead/lost, 500.000 lost their home, about 2.000 schools were damaged, About 2.500 teachers died, Only 45.000 students left from 72.000 students. In Syiah Kuala University 111 lecturers died/lost, includes 3 profesors and 5 Doktor, 72 admin lost, 522 students of Unsyiah died/lost More than 8 hospitals damaged or destroyed, 114 health center or klinik were destroyed. 3.000 km streets couldn’t be used, 14 from 19 harbours were highly damaged, 120 main bridges were destroyed, 15.000 espoused briges were damaged, and 8 from 10 airports were damaged.

Immediately aids from Taiwanese came just after Tsunami and earth quake hit Aceh. The aids almost 200 tons includes food, clothes and daily needs and Taiwanese also builds many buildings and houses. The aids still continue till now and total of the aids more than 50 million US Dollar.

The biggest aids for Syiah kuala University is ICT buildings. The building is use for development ICT in Aceh, also becomes the place to teach computer for teachers. It cost 2 million US Dollars. The aids also come from ADOC, they give 20 computers and 20 laptops.

The partnership also gives chance for young talented Aceh student to internship in Academia Sinica. The program starts from 2009 till now. This program give chance to Aceh student to learn open source, open their mind about Taiwanese culture and advance technology. They also have chance to communicate with other people and share ideas.

Taiwan also send their student from National Tsing Hua University. From 2008 till now they sent volunteers to teach open source in rural area in Aceh province. The program called E-Mate (E-Learning Medan Aceh Taiwan).

Base on information above, the partnership need improvements, because Taiwan and Aceh need each other to develop their country. They need community development to keep this condition such as discussion on mailing list or share with others people to let them now the condition. Taiwan also need to engaged with global community and Strengthen the volunteers program. Taiwan need Aceh because they have to learn about culture and let the Taiwanese communicate with global community with global language, not only mandarin.

Aceh also need help from Taiwan, student from Aceh have to continue their study in Taiwan, also they need to Strengthen the internship program, so aceh student can learn more not only about open source but also Taiwanese culture.