The team is heading for the province of Ampara, into an area called Kalimunai, where they will join MERCY Malaysia’s mission members of the Rapid Assessment team, Dr. Palasuntharam Shanmuhasuntharam, MERCY Malaysia’s Executive Committee member, and Praemeenah Poombalan.

MERCY Malaysia’s mission is two pronged, and that is to establish mobile clinics for primary care where they can provide medical treatment to the people of Kalimunai. The team will also set up a Psychological Intervention Programme to the communities which are mentally affected by the loss of loved ones, livelihood, homes and belongings. It is hoped that the service that MERCY Malaysia provides through primary care services and the Psychological Intervention Programme will help the affected population to move on or start anew.

For the people of Aceh, MERCY Malaysia has formulated two programmes that will run concurrently with each other, and they are the Medical Relief Programme and the Humanitarian Relief Programme.

MERCY Malaysia’s Medical Relief Programme is a 3 Phase Programme that will run for one year. Phase 1 is the Emergency Medical Relief Programme, which involves providing medical treatment by supporting community health services through mobile clinics, and the commencement of the Psychological Intervention Programme.

Phase 2 is a Rehabilitation Programme, where MERCY Malaysia will continue to support the medical needs of Kesdam Military Hospital as well as Hospital Zainal Abidin, providing mobile clinics and Psychological Intervention Programmes in Banda Aceh and West Coast including Melaboh.

Thirdly, the Rehabilitation and Capacity Building and Preparedness Programme will implement the emergency medical services and the Hospital Preparedness and Emergency project, train local staff for emergency medical service and psychological intervention.

MERCY Malaysia’s Humanitarian Relief Programme comes in two phases, which starts with the Management of Internally Displaced Persons’ Programme and is followed by Rehabilitation Programme which will cover areas such as distribution of humanitarian relief items such as food and essentials, building of homes and sanitation facilities, as well as integrating psychological training into the communities’ education system.

MERCY Malaysia is appealing to the public for donation that will help fund these projects as well as implement more long term projects. Contribution is tax exempt for Malaysian citizens. Donations can be made to the MERCY Humanitarian Fund (and on the reverse side of the cheque, write SE Asia Earthquake Appeal). Alternatively, donations can also be deposited directly into Maybank Account No. 5621 7950 4126.