The Role of Community-Based Organization in Disaster Response at Mt. Sinabung

Abstract

In August 2010, Mt. Sinabung in North Sumatera erupted for the very first time in 400 years; until that moment the volcano had been declared as dormant. In contrast to the communities living around Mt. Merapi in Java, the Mt. Sinabung communities had little to no preparation when faced with the sudden volcanic eruption. The Sinabung eruption caused disturbances as it ruined the farmlands and community’s sources of livelihood, especially since most of the community members are farmers. Most of the time, these farmlands are located not far from their house, so displacing them means moving them away from their main source of income. This makes some of the displaced keep moving back to their old villages to farm even though they are putting themselves in danger by doing so. This condition motivated the community to initiate Beidar, an organization to monitor volcanic activities and give out early warnings to villagers nearby and within the hazard zone to evacuate. This paper will study Beidar’s involvement with the community and the government, how they operate, and how they impact the community members living near the volcano. This data used in this study are primarily from interviews with Beidar members and organizers, volcanic monitoring posts, and the local disaster management. A thematic analysis of the interviews shows the history of Beidar’s development as an organization proudly independent of the government; the “recruitment” of members; the important roles in the community including mediating between government and other local organizations (e.g., volcano monitoring station); specific monitoring; communication and evacuation activities (e.g., including search activities after eruptions and lahars); contacts and sharing of experience with similar groups in Indonesia; and identifying the limits of their influence in preventing local people from returning to the red zone. This research concludes that Beidar was officially acknowledged as an organization in March 2014 under the wing of the Volcanology Agency, which needed help to disseminate the volcano status information to the community. Recruiting local youth is seen as a better alternative since the communities — especially the internally displaced community members — have little trust in the government due to the crisis and deemed them ‘incompetent’. Beidar, as a community-based organization, can fill the gap between the community and the government in terms of information dissemination, especially because they are local and are acknowledged as a trusted part of the community. However, this dynamic has a side effect of the villagers’ feeling of security with Beidar ‘watching over them’. This lowers their risk perception of the volcano, leading them to endanger themselves more by crossing over the hazard area to conducting their day-to-day activity.