Tuesday, 15-November-2011
Humanitarian Forum Indonesia (HFI) and Pos Keadilan Peduli Ummat (PKPU) organized a workshop with a big theme “The Role of Interfaith in Disaster” on November 1, 2011. The participants included UNOCHA, Muhammadiah, Karina KAS, Budha Tze Chi, and PKPU.
The workshop comprises three sessions. The first session focused on introducing humanitarian action, especially interfaith groups while the second centered on the sharing of experiences on humanitarian work. The last session gave an opportunity to the participants to make a discussion.
Hening Parlan, Director of HFI, inaugurated the workshop. In her welcoming speech, Parlan said interfaith can be humanitarian group in providing a solution to a variety of humanitarian problems, especially in times of disasters. Today, this phenomenon can be visibly seen among religious groups in efforts in providing aid to the natural disaster victims. In some case, the natural disaster victims suspect the activity of religious groups has some hidden agenda behind their social action. According to Parlan, the existence of religious groups can be very helpful in rehabilitation and reconstruction process post disaster. Religious approach considered to be one of the best solutions of recovery process for the people who attached the impact of disaster.
After the opening remark, the workshop is continued to the first session with a theme about what interfaith group is. There are four speakers for this session; Ignacio Gracia Leon (Head of United Nations Office for The Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNOCHA), Prof. Dr. A. Syafiq Mugni, M.A (PP Muhammadiyah), Methodius Kusumahadi (Karitas Indonesia Keuskupan Agung Semarang, KARINA KAS), and Ir. Syamsul Maarif, Msi (keynote speaker, Head of Badan Nasional Penanggulan Bencana, BNPB). Ignacio said that as religious people, human have the obligation to help each other, not to destroy them. Based on this statement in 2005, the United Nations built a humanitarian institute that assist religious and non religious institution to undertake social action together. The aim of this is to help or serve all the people in the world. According to Ignacio, the religious institution has a key role, but it will not effectively work if it works alone. The religious group needs to build a networking and cooperation with other institution to increase their effectiveness of work.
Furthermore, Prof. Syafiq Mugni explained about humanitarian action from Islamic perspective. He mentioned that Islamic doctrine highly upholds humanity values. Muhammadiyah institute is one of the examples of the implementation of Islam doctrine. Since its establishment, Muhammadiyah’s primary motivation is humanity. There are several humanitarian institutions in Muhammadiyah, such as LPB (Lembaga Penanggulangan Bencana) or Disaster Management Institution that has a responsibility to take care the victims of disaster, PKU (Pembina Kesehatan Umum) or Public Health Adviser, and Majelis Pelayanan Sosial or Social Service Council which focus on the development of the orphan and displaced people. Moreover, he said that humanitarian forum focus on the rescue to the people who really need help and it is in line with religious spirit. However, the important thing that we have to do is to build advocacy so that there will be a changing of policy in international and national level. Based on reality, the misery can not be separated from the policy making. To build a peaceful and justice new world order is the main objective of Muhammadiyah.
for the full article: http://icrs.ugm.ac.id/news/79/workshop-on-interfaith-role-in-disaster-circumstances.html
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