Happy New Year and Seasons Greetings to all AAI staff, volunteers, supporters and friends. As yet another year is now closed, its time to reflect on our team's important achievements over the past 12 months and to thank all of those people who have made such a valuable contribution to our important work in providing relief to those less fortunate than ourselves.

Our two central programs in Timor-Leste and Java, Indonesia have continued to expand and have produced some incredible outcomes through the hard work of our respective field teams. Our stalwarts in Jogjakarta including Eva, Daniel, Niko, Shanti, Topo, Michael, Corie, Elsje, and Joe have achieved some incredible results in Clinic Reconstruction and Disaster Risk Reduction. In Timor- Leste we have had Sasha, Amanda, Crystal, Penny, Emma, Heather, Marion, Shaun, Jason, Suman, Shaba, Lina, Eduardo, Cesar, Nunu, Sonja, Niarana, Daniel, Luis, John and Dave also continue to improve and expand our health program partnership with Oilex Ltd and the Timor-Leste Ministry of Health.

2008 is already looking like a busy period with the continuation of our health program in Timor- Leste, the conduct of landmine surgery training in Northern Thailand, and the completion of our Clinic Reconstruction and DRR project in Java. We are currently assessing needs in the Central Java area following disastrous flooding and landslides in that area over the Christmas and New Year period. It is our intention to carry out health and community rehabilitation programs directly in effected areas.

We have also postured ourselves to be able to respond effectively to disasters and emergencies in our region, and worldwide. This is an important and complex capability to maintain, and I thank the supporters and volunteers who have helped develop our abilities in this regard.

I would also like to thank those members of our senior management team who volunteer a large amount of their time to continuing to develop AAI as a quality NGO. These include Dom, Nathan, Paul, Marina, Doug and Jim. Without their dedication and commitment AAI could not achieve the results that we have been able to do so far.

On behalf of the AAI Board and Directors I wish you all the very best for the forthcoming year and look forward to working with you as a key part of the greater humanitarian community. Thank you again for your support, and be assured that we see this period as a time of growth and development for the organisation, and continued expansion of operations in disaster effected areas.

AAI in partnership with the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (MOH) in the sub-district of Atauro started specialised medical operations during the months of October-December, 2007.

AAI provided healthcare projects in support of the MoH and District Health Services (DHS) as and where the major needs arose. Atauro Island is an area of current focus which is one of the most remote and needy communities in Timor-Leste. AAI have begun the foundations of a long term healthcare project on Atauro that aims at providing support and supervision for the District Health Service.

This project aims to provide a legacy for health support to the communities of Timor-Leste. This will be achieved through the development of existing staff to accomplish a sustainable relative autonomy of health management within the community without the need for outside intervention.

Click below to download and read AAI's report to the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (MOH):

Click here to read more about our Timor Leste program.

Construction of AAI's three health clinics is proceeding smoothly. Work is on schedule and within budget. Despite being well ahead of schedule, quality is still a priority now the work is focusing on the finishing touches. Soon, the clinic project will be complete. The local communities will then evaluate the work, and there will be a period during which they will try out the buildings and look for anything which could be improved. A formal opening ceremony is being planned for January, when the clinics will be officially handed over. It will be the culmination of several months of hard work, and will be a real celebration for everyone involved.

Click here to read more about our the construction program.

In November AAI's community engagement work in the Klaten district of Yogyakarta was successful implemented. Both the construction and disaster risk reduction programmes have been concluded, and only a training session on maintenance of AAI's clinics remains.

Initial trainings in basic disaster awareness were completed in November, and each of the three villages with which AAI works has now received at least four such trainings. These introduced members of the community to the project, trained participants in earthquake preparedness and response, and stressed the importance of community-wide communication and cooperation in planning for and responding to disasters. Women's groups, farmers' groups, youth groups, micro-loan cooperatives and social organisations were some of the interest groups AAI was able to meet with in this phase.

Click here to read more about ou Community Engagement program.

International Staff On The Move

Staff leaving Timor this quarter include; Marion Brand, Health Coordinator, completed 3 months and was the driving force which ensured AAI was able to start an effective project on the remote Island of Atauro , off the coast of Dili; Dr Suman Majumdar, who was able to provide the health team with great direction…

New staff coming into the Timor Project this quarter include; Nirana Di Sivla, volunteer project nurse and this year is contracted on as staff. Furthermore volunteer project nurse Penny Sizer, who had showed great leadership ability, was promoted to Health Coordinator in recognition of her outstanding achievements.

In Indonesia volunteer Community Engagement and Training Coordinator Corrie Waddell completed her assignment for establishing our Disaster Risk Reduction training project. The work that Corie was able to do along with our Indonesia team has established a very successful initiative.

Many of our successful volunteers have the opportunity to stay on with AAI in contracted positions and indeed all staff current staff in AAI operations commenced with AAI as volunteers initially. This shows great recognition of there achievements and dedication to make relief work a career.

AAI's Volunteer of the Quarter has been awarded to Niko Herlambang, Construction Coordinator in our Jogjakarta project. Niko is a long term staff member of AAI in Indonesia originally volunteering with our water and sanitation projects in response to the Jogjakarta Earthquake. Niko's organisational skills were quickly recognised and he was accordingly promoted to coordinating other AAI reconstruction and water and sanitation projects.

When our construction manager finished his contract in Sep 07 Niko was able to take over all construction coordination and ensure that AAI built quality health facilities to a very high standard as well as coordinating all contractors, payments and reporting. Niko has excelled in this position and was able to take over responsibility, along with other members of his team, of a very important project without the need of further international staff assistance.

Niko has been a leading example of how AAI develop our local capacity and have our local staff manage programs independently which is the aim of all AAI operations.

AAI has proudly published a high quality journal design as a focal point and reference source for the professional humanitarian. Titled “The Humanitarian Journal”, this publication contains articles on such issues as the UN Cluster System, NGO's and the military, preparing for a mission and Australia 's new White Paper on Overseas Aid. AAI would like to thank the efforts of its many contributors.

Click here to access an electronic copy of The Humanitarian Journal.

In February 2007, AAI completed a highly successful series of courses to prepare humanitarian workers for overseas missions. The courses included an Introduction to Humanitarian Assistance Operations, Hostile Environment Awareness Training, Cultural Awareness and Psychological First Aid training. A number of students from these courses have now been deployed on humanitarian missions with AAI to Timor Leste. As a result of the demand for humanitarian training, AAI will soon be implementing online courses from its website.

Click here to read more about AAI Training on our website.