IRIN Asia – Thursday 22 Jan, 2008
Primary school students are enjoying classes at their newly built school 51 in Banda Aceh City. Some 214 students attend the school – half of them girls. Image: Brennon Jones/IRIN
BANDA ACEH, 22 January 2009 (IRIN) – As horrific as the 2004 Asian tsunami was, 11-year-old Iba Rada points to at least one positive aspect. After thousands of schools were destroyed, the effort to “build back better” – former President Bill Clinton’s slogan for the recovery process – seems to be succeeding in school reconstruction in Banda Aceh City, Aceh Province.
Rada, a student at Public Primary School 51, delights in the new facility. “It’s clean and beautiful and has very good study materials,” she told IRIN.
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi (BRR), the Indonesian Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency, said on 26 December 2008, the fourth anniversary of the tsunami, that 1,450 school buildings had been rebuilt in the province. . .
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