PMI Central Board

True stories of the life of persons on the PMI RFL PROGRAM

Restoring Family Links (RFL) is a PMI programme which specifically serves to restore the links of families separated by natural disasters or conflicts.

The tasks of RFL are (1) to collect, process, and convey all information that is required to identify persons who need to be helped by the PMI, (2) to exchange family messages between separated family members when normal communication means are disrupted, (3) to trace missing family members, and (4) to reunify separated families and to carry out transfers and repatriations.

1. political, racial, religious or The International Red Cross ideological nature.and Red Crescent Movement, born of a desire to bring 4.assistance without The Movement is independent. The discrimination to the National Societies, while wounded on the battlefield, auxiliaries in the humanitarian endeavours, in its services of their governments and international and national subjects to the laws of their capacity, to prevent and respective countries, must always alleviate human suffering maintain their autonomy so that wherever it may be found. they may be able at all times to Its purpose is to protect life act in accordance with the and health and to ensure principles of the Movement.respect for the human being. It promotes mutual 5.understanding, friendship, It is a voluntary relief movement cooperation and lasting not prompted in any manner by peace amongst all peoples. desire for gain.

2. 6.It makes no discrimination as There can be only one Red Cross or to nationality, race, religious Red Crescent Society in any one beliefs, class or political country. It must be open to all. It opinion. It endeavours to must carry on its humanitarian relieve the suffering of work throughout its territory.individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to 7.give priority to the most The International Red Cross and urgent cases of distress. Red Crescent Movement, in which

all societies have equal status and 3. share equal responsibilities and

In order to enjoy the duties in helping each other, is confidence of all, the world-wide.Movement may not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a

HUMANITY

INDEPENDENCE

VOLUNTARY SERVICE

IMPARTIALITY UNITY

UNIVERSALITY

NEUTRALITY

In carrying out its activities and providing its services, the PMI adheres to the Seven Fundamental Principles

of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as follows:

True stories of the life of persons on the PMI RFL PROGRAM

2010

To obtain service from or further information about the Restoring Family Links (RFL) Program, contact the PMI Branch in your area or one of the PMI Chapters listed below:

Copyright©pmi 2009; printed in 2010; prepared by the RFL Program of the National Board Division of the PMI Head Office with support from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); published by the PMI Head Office

Regional PMI A ddress Phone/F ax

Many disasters, both natural and social, happen in Indonesia and leave the affected persons suffering. Palang Merah Indonesia or PMI (the Indonesian Red Cross) endeavours to alleviate the plight of such persons through its humanitarian action, namely by providing them with relief items for their physical needs such as food, medicine, and temporary shelter and with assistance for their non-physical needs such as reunifying families separated by the disaster.

The Restoring Family Links/RFL service aims to restore contact between family members who are separated as a result of natural disasters, conflicts, or other humanitarian occurrences such as adoptions and migrations. This service is provided when the means of communication between separated family members no longer function.

This “Stories during Separation” booklet features a number of true, touching stories of how family links came to be restored. The process leading to the reunification was carried out by branch-level PMI volunteers, who traced each case down to where it originated. It is also shown in the stories that the tracing process had no timeframes as its success or failure depended on many factors. One case took only three months to solve, but certain cases took more than three years. It is necessary to note that all stories in this booklet are published with the consent of the persons concerned.

It is our hope that this booklet will help the reader understand the PMI RFL's core duties and functions and its partnership with the RFL Network of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Jakarta, January 2010PMI National BoardSecretary-General

Budi A. Adiputro

Photo: PMI Doc

Photo: PMI Doc

ntan was an eight-year-old girl. Until the tsunami, she lived with her parents in Banda Aceh. When the tsunami struck on 26 IDecember 2004, Intan was rescued by Anton, who happened to be

on his way to Aceh Tamiang.

One PMI RFL team included Intan on the list of unaccompanied children. With support from the ICRC, the PMI made an attempt to reunite Intan with her family. Various ways were resorted to by the PMI in its attempt to reunite Intan with her family, such as having her picture published in the media (both print and electronic), producing posters, and displaying her picture on websites.

Then, four months after the tsunami, Intan came to remember having an uncle whose surname was Chaniago and who lived in Lahewa, Nias and worked as a television technician. With this information, an RFL team from the PMI North Sumatra Chapter coordinated with the PMI Gunung Sitoli Branch in Nias for a search. The search ended with Intan's uncle being located, thanks to the fact that not many persons with the surname of Chaniago lived and worked as a television technician in Lahewa. Intan's uncle produced a family card showing that one of the names written on it was that of Intan's father, his sibling. It served as proof that he was Intan's relative.

When the RFL team showed a picture of the girl, Intan's uncle and his family cried tears of joy. The team then took a picture of Intan's uncle and his family to show it to Intan and to see her reaction. Intan recognized the man in the picture as her uncle as he looked like her father.

Then, the RFL team arranged for them to meet. The moments of the reunification were ones of emotion. Anton, who had been Intan's caretaker, wanted to continue caring for her until she grew up, but Intan's uncle decided to take her to Nias and take care of her there.

Source: RFL Coordinator at the PMI Aceh Province

gustinho, a 15-year-old boy, had been separated from his mother since 1997, two years before the incident of violence in Timor-Leste. He was taken by his uncle to A

Cianjur to study. In 2004, his parents wanted to have him back in Dili because he had finished his elementary school education and the situation in Dili was stable. Therefore, they sought help from the ICRC in view of a family reunification.

The PMI Cianjur Branch went to the address provided and located Agustinho. Initially, he refused to go back to Dili, as he did not want to bey away from his friends and from his favourite dishes, because of language differences, and for other reasons.

The RFL team refrained from making Agustinho, who was still in the category of unaccompanied minors, go back to Dili against his will and let him make his own decision. Finally, however, he agreed to go back to Dili, but not until he finished his school exams late in June 2006. During this period of waiting, Agustinho's parents maintained contact with him using the Red Cross Message (RCM).

Following his school exams, Agustinho went with his aunt from Cianjur to Jakarta to complete the administrative work required for his return to Dili at the Timor-Leste Embassy and the Immigration Office. Finally, in January 2007, Agustinho was reunified with his family after a PMI Head Office staff member had taken him to Timor-Leste, where his mother had been waiting for him at the airport.

Source: the RFL Sub-division of the PMI Head Quarter

uis Sarmento, a man originally from Timor-Leste, had been separated from his family since he was five. At that age, Luis was already working. He moved from one workplace to L

another around Timor-Leste, following one employer after another, until he met with H. Amase, owner of the “Wahyu Ilahi” shop. In 1999, riots broke out in East Timor (now Timor-Leste). Many shops in East Timor were destroyed during these riots, which were sparked by the pros and cons on independence, including the one owned by H. Amase. H. Amase moved to South Sulawesi with Luis and then to Southeast Sulawesi, where he opened the same shop with Luis as one of the shopkeepers.

In Southeast Sulawesi, H. Amase and all his employees lived on Jl. Lasandra No. 7, Mandonga, Kendari, and that was the time when Luis lost contact with his family. From 2001, Luis no longer worked with H. Amase and took up new jobs, one after another, from driving, shop keeping, to building construction. He tried to do all he could to contact his family, but in vain. In March 2008, the PMI Head Office RFL Sub-division received a tracing request from ICRC Jakarta, which had received it from ICRC Dili, and forwarded it to the PMI Southeast Sulawesi Chapter (PD Sultra). It was a request for the tracing of Luis Sarmento and originated from his father, Mateus Miguel.

The request was received by PD Sultra on 13 March 2008, with a note that it be followed up. Following this, the RFL coordinator at PD Sultra began coordination with the chair of the Chapter, who took no time before assigning a PD Sultra RFL team to locate the address provided. However, when the team arrived at the

address, H. Amase was no longer domiciled in Southeast Sulawesi but had resettled in Central Sulawesi.

Various ways were attempted to locate Luis, from coordinating with the East Timor families' forum in Kendari to visiting the East Timorese community's housing complex for some additional information that could lead to finding Luis' latest residence and workplace. Such information was finally obtained. The RFL team was given the home address of one of Luis' relatives in Kendari. At this point, a light was shed on Luis' current whereabouts, a place where worked as a construction worker.

When the team arrived at the given address, they asked the construction supervisor for permission to meet with the sought person. After some identification, the sought person proved to match the features and biodata presented in the tracing request, and he was Luis Sarmento.

The team introduced themselves to him and explained the purpose of their visit. Luis was moved by the news he received from his family, whom he had been looking for all these years. Luis was married with one child. He had been longing to return to Timor-Leste, but financial constraints had not enabled him to do so.

On 4 April 2008, Luis, accompanied by the RFL team of PD Sultra, visited his relative's house at Pusiambo village in Lembo sub-district, Konawe Utara, where he wrote an RCM to his family in Timor-Leste and expressed his wish to the team that the PMI might be able to help him return to Timor-Leste. The team said that the PMI could help only by forwarding the RCM, and Luis nevertheless thanked the PMI profusely for its role in helping deliver the RCM to his family.

On 20 June 2008, PD Sultra received an RCM reply from Luis' family in Timor-Leste, which said that they were hoping for Luis

to return and support his ailing parents in Viqueque, Timor-Leste. Luis was deeply moved when he read the RCM brought to him by the RFL team of PD Sultra, and he wrote back saying that he would save money and would soon arrange for a passport to enable him to go to Timor-Leste and meet with his family. Currently, according to the latest information, Luis is still communicating intensely with his family in Timor-Leste and is still longing to return there.

Source: RFL coordinator at the PMI Southeast Sulawesi Province

osalien was born to a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother. Her father went back to the Netherlands when Japan occupied RIndonesia. Rosalien, who had not met her father for nearly

half a century, had been trying her own ways to find his whereabouts, including contacting her Dutch acquaintances, but to no avail.

One day she read a newspaper report that the PMI provided services for whomever lost contact with relatives as a result of armed conflicts, natural disasters, adoptions, asylum-seeking, and displacements. Rosalien decided to find her father through the PMI. Thanks to cooperation between the PMI Surabaya Branch and the PMI Head Office, with the latter keeping regular contact with the Netherlands Red Cross for two years, Rosalien's father, whose name was Iwan Hellen, was finally located. This enabled Rosalien and her father to begin contacting each other by phone and by mail. In the beginning, Iwan Helen and his family in Holland had doubts about the letter from Rosalien because it did not mention anything about her mother, Maria Magdalena, who was his wife during his time in Indonesia. However, because of her strong wish to meet her father, Rosalien then sent him a picture of her and her mother that was taken when she was six years old. This picture convinced Iwan Helen that Rosalien was his daughter. Iwan Helen then sent his daughter Diana to Surabaya, and Rosalien was very happy with the visit of her half-sister. Nevertheless, she did not feel satisfied, as she had not met with her biological father. “Father left me when I was five months old in my mother's womb, and according to the will Mother made before she died, I must meet with my father,” Rosalien said to The Surabaya Post. One week later, Iwan Hellen agreed to have Rosalien and her children visit the Netherlands at his expenses, and Rosalien's dream to meet with her father came true.

Adapted from an article on page 2 of The Surabaya Post of 9 April 1991

hen Sartini was 3 months old, her mother handed her to an orphanage. A Dutch family then adopted her and took her to the Netherlands. When Sartini was 23 W

years old, she wanted to find out where her mother was. She sent a tracing request to the Netherlands Red Cross, which subsequently forwarded it to the Indonesian Red Cross. The PMI Head Office then passed on the request to the PMI Central Java Chapter.

After a few months, the PMI managed to find the whereabouts of Sartini's biological mother, whose name was Saginem. Knowing that her mother had been located, Sartini started communicating with her via mail. The correspondence continued until one day, Sartini decided to meet her in person.

At last, Sartini visited Sragen, where her mother lived. It was just like a miracle: after 23 years of separation between the Netherlands and Sragen, Sartini was finally able to meet her mother Saginem. Her longing was fulfilled.

Sources: the RFL Sub-division of the PMI Head Quarter and the PMI Central Java Province

Restoring Family Links (RFL) is a PMI programme which specifically serves to restore the links of families separated as a result of natural disasters and armed conflicts. The tasks of RFL are (1) to collect, process, and convey all information that is required to identify persons who need to be helped by the PMI and (2) to exchange family messages between separated family members when normal communication means are disrupted, (3) to trace missing family members, and (4) to reunify separated families and to carry out transfers and repatriations.

In a normal situation, the RFL service is provided using the RCM (Red Cross Message) and the tracing request.

In an emergency situation, the RFL service is provided using the “I'm Alive” form and the “I'm Looking for” form. The data from these forms are compiled on a list, which is subsequently displayed in public places such as coordination posts (posko), hospitals, and IDP camps for viewing by families who are looking for their relatives. As for the criteria of eligibility, the RFL service is available to all who are separated from their families as a result of natural disasters, armed conflicts, or other humanitarian occurrences such as adoptions and migrations.

As regards adoptions, the RFL service handles only cases that are related to the period of time when Indonesia was under the Dutch rule. During that period, Dutch nationals adopted many Indonesian children. Now that these children are adults, many are seeking information about their biological parents.