Acehnese student in S'pore steers global aid for flood-hit hometown

He leads 2,500-strong network from NUS dorm to send relief to flood-hit Sumatra

- Hariz Baharudin

As floods struck homes in his hometown in Aceh in late November, displacing residents and destroying their properties, Acehnese student Hafiz Akbar found himself coordinating relief efforts from his dorm room in the National University of Singapore.

Mr Hafiz, 25, who is doing his master's degree at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, heads the Forum Mahasiswa Aceh di Dunia (FORMAD), a federation of 25 Acehnese student organisations around the world.

Since the deadly floods struck Sumatra on Nov 25, he has been juggling school and his part-time teaching assistant duties in Singapore, as well as coordinating with FORMAD groups, including those in the Middle East, China and Malaysia.

"Coordinating takes a lot of time, sometimes into the early hours, because our members are spread across time zones," he said.

FORMAD's 2,500-strong network has become a channel for information, logistics support and advocacy as the humanitarian situation deepens. The group began raising funds and distributing basic supplies within hours of the floods by working with local partners.

The group has collected a modest 10 million rupiah (S$776) so far and he said the funds were deployed immediately to buy food, bottled water and medicine.

These supplies reached families in the worst-hit districts days before official assistance could get through washed-out roads.