I was in Indonesia when the earthquakes struck.
But it wasn’t until the next morning I realised just how much damage the biggest 6.9 magnitude earthquake on August 5, 2018, had caused, as the death toll started to rise.
What happened in Lombok earthquakes?
- 3 major earthquakes within 2 weeks
- 553 people died
- 125,314 homes destroyed
- 355,099 people homeless
I went to Lombok that August, the week after the three earthquakes, to distribute supplies from an online fundraiser and was overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster.
Local charities have been working hard, alongside the government rebuild efforts, but the vast scale of this destruction means that 9 months on, there’s still a lot to do.
Pituq Community Foundation
I began following a local charity, Pituq Community Foundation, on Instagram as they were very good at documenting the work they were doing on the ground.
I’d dined in the Pituq Waroeng restaurant in the neighbouring holiday island Gili Trawangan only weeks earlier, vlogging eating the delicious vegan food, and soon learned about their charity efforts.
Long after I’d left Indonesia, I watched with awe the work this charity was doing: delivering clean water and food to villages; and providing school lessons, stationary and trauma healing for the children.
The photographs of the smiling face of locals, who despite all the trauma were taking it in their stride, always drew me in and reminded me of the resilience of these people.
But some recent images, showing a unique solution, really caught my attention.
Plastic water bottles filled with colourful plastic trash being touted as the next environmentally-friendly building product.
Not only that, but recycled bags being filled with dirt and stacked up to form walls – that were earthquake-proof!
My hippie heart, inspired by clever permaculture concepts, was singing loud. The fact that locals were empowered to get to work themselves with little financial requirement, sounded incredible.
So I messaged the page to find out a little more about the projects. I decided I wanted to make a video because I thought a lot of others would be just as intrigued as I was.
I spoke to Ana from Finland who is now based fulltime in Lombok with her Indonesian husband Rahmat working on the charity projects.
She said I was more than welcome to go and follow them around to see their current projects throughout the week I was in Lombok.
So I packed up my travel video journalism kit of cameras and microphones and off I went!
Eco bricks: recycling plastic for building
Indonesia is one of the world’s worst plastic polluters so eco-bricks offer a solution: by using plastic trash to create something new.
Children learn the importance of picking up plastic, with their families getting involved as they’re paid money – 1000 IDR (around 10c AUD which is about the same as regular bricks) – for each eco brick that’s up to standard.
And local village women who have little to no income have happily taken up the opportunity to get paid to recycle.
“They collect the plastic, either on the street or in their homes whatever plastic they use,” Ana said.
“And then they clean it, dry it up and then cut it onto smaller pieces and then you can put it inside using a simple kind of stick.”
So these bricks benefit the environment, the family incomes and provide a cheap building product!
Earthbag building an earthquake-proof school
Earthbags have long been popular in permaculture circles because of the solar passive properties but here in Lombok, the biggest selling point is they’re earthquake proof!
The natural dirt inside the bags and the gravel base layer under the walls all work to absorb the movement from earthquakes.
The structure of the building makes sense, after having seen hundreds of collapsed roofs and walls that couldn’t handle the movement from the earthquakes.
With the earthbag construction, the roof is built first on its own structural poles, and the walls built directly onto the ground, with the flooring done last, giving it more room for movement.
This project is being overseen by UK charity Worldwide Action, after they’ve had success using this method after the Nepal earthquakes in 2015.
Cheap water filters provide clean drinking water
I first heard of the Nazava water filters when I was organising emergency relief immediately after the earthquakes.
Little did I know back then, how much this product would become an integral part of the lives of locals in Lombok.
Wells were damaged in the earthquakes, introducing bacteria into the water, which was already a gamble to drink at the best of times.
Water started coming out yellow and cloudy and making people sick. I was told a baby died from drinking the water after the earthquakes as well as an older adult.
These filters are basically one big bucket on top of another, with the water having to pass through a filtering system to reach the bottom, where it can be poured out through a tap.
It only costs $35AUD or 22 euro to purchase one of these water filter systems which can provide clean drinking water for up to 25 people every day for three years. Amazing bang for buck!
Donate to help the people of Lombok
If you want to donate for Pituq to purchase and deliver a water filter you can donate here.
You can even specify which project you want your money to go towards.
To find more about Pituq Community Foundation, head to their website, Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks for reading this article and watching my video! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos.
Roxanne Taylor is a video journalist, vlogger and videographer from Australia.
