How life goes on after an earthquake: The ‘Lego schools’ of Lombok | Education

Lombok, Indonesia – Azra, 13, recalled running out of her home one night about six years ago when a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck. Most people are at home eating or watching TV.

“We saw houses collapse one after another, which was very traumatic for us,” she recalled.

The shallow inland earthquake that struck the northwest of the island on August 5, 2018 was the most powerful ever recorded in Lombok, killing 560 people and damaging or destroying almost all buildings in the rural area, which is within walking distance of the forest. The pass is a two-hour drive from the main southern town of Mataram.

Azra’s home was also destroyed. “I’m thankful that no one in my family was killed, but I feel very sad because I know how my parents used money to build our home,” she said.

In villages along the coastal road, simple houses have been rebuilt and life seems to be returning to normal around shack shops and snack bars (kiosks or small restaurants) selling fried chicken and rice. But the disaster had a lasting impact on children’s education.

After the earthquake, schools were closed for three months. When they reopened, most children found themselves studying in makeshift classrooms set up in tents in school playgrounds or mosques. More than 400 schools evaluative The country’s National Disaster Management Agency said the facility was severely damaged by the earthquake and was completely unusable. Some schools have since rebuilt, but the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted recovery efforts and progress has been slow since then.

Studying under tattered plywood

At the beginning of this year, Azra and her Grade 7 classmates were still studying in a makeshift classroom at her school, SMPN 3 Tanjong Junior High School, which is located next to farmland on the outskirts of the coastal town.

The school is a barn-style building patched with tattered plywood because the government didn’t renovate enough buildings for all 400 students.

“We don’t feel comfortable in these classrooms because it’s so hot,” she said. During the rainy season (November to March), flooding occurs and children sit at their desks with their feet in puddles.

Since then, things have improved for Azra and her classmates. In February this year, they became the first students at Tanjong School to attend classes in four new permanent earthquake-resistant classrooms made from recycled plastic blocks.

In the dusty school quad, the new classrooms stand like beacons of hope next to the dilapidated, half-collapsed ruins of the former library and science labs that have yet to be demolished, serving as a constant reminder to students and teachers of what the earthquake caused.

The so-called neighborhood schools are part of a groundbreaking initiative by Australian NGO Classrooms of Hope, which aims to help speed up school reconstruction plans in northern Lombok. It uses a modular building system that snaps together like Lego bricks, allowing the entire building to be assembled within a week.

The program also uses what its leaders call a “circular economy” approach to reducing plastic waste pollution in Indonesia, with each classroom eliminating approximately 1.8 tons of plastic waste from the environment.

Classrooms of Hope chief executive Tanya Armstrong said the main thrust of the neighborhood school program was to improve access to education. “Our research found that children learn half as much in temporary settings as they do in permanent schools,” she said. An on-site assessment carried out by the charity identified at least 100 more schools needed in northern Lombok as part of earthquake recovery efforts.

When Al Jazeera English visited some of the newest neighborhood schools last month, students and teachers found a renewed enthusiasm for learning in the clean, spacious classrooms. Students and teachers alike say they feel safer in these buildings than those built with traditional materials — especially after earthquakes.

emotional challenges

At SDN 4 Sigar Penjalin Primary School, also in Tanjung Village, two blocks of classrooms are being completed to replace dilapidated shelters under the awning of the damaged school building that has been used as classrooms until now. The buildings have only flimsy wood and metal screens separating students from the traffic noise and smoke of busy main roads.

Principal Baiq Nurhasanah, 46, said the addition of new classrooms in an currently occupied building brought a much-needed sense of normalcy to the school after the emotional challenges faced by the community. [for fear of tsunamis] They are afraid to return to their villages. Children are very worried about going back to school,” she said.

The cheerful teacher, wearing a bright yellow headscarf, greeted children affectionately as they ran over to stand with her in the schoolyard, but she burst into tears as she remembered one of her students, who was killed when his house collapsed One of five family members killed. “Everybody here is traumatized,” she said.

It is crucial that neighborhood schools are designed to withstand intense seismic activity. In tests by UC civil engineers, the honeycomb modules are more flexible than traditional materials and 100 times lighter than reinforced concrete, expected to minimize the risk of injury during an earthquake.

“With this new material, children will feel safer and eager to learn,” Nurhusana said.

Hope Classroom collaborated with Finnish company Block Solutions to develop a modular building system for rapid construction, making it the first system for disaster relief construction. Block Solutions Indonesia opened a dedicated factory in southern Lombok in June 2023 to reduce the cost and carbon footprint of transporting modules from Finland.

At the Indonesian facility, the blocks are made from recycled polypropylene (PP), often used in opaque bottles such as those used in cleaning products and food storage containers. The materials are collected from Lombok and other provinces and processed into pellets and then into blocks at the nearest recycling plant in East Java. The company now also produces blocks for other construction projects across Indonesia.

The first five-classroom neighborhood school was built in June 2021 for Taman Sari Primary School, located on a hillside in a densely wooded area. The school, part of the west coast village of Medas Bentaur, serves just under 1,000 people who make a living by picking and selling bamboo for construction or as construction workers.

Since then, 22 more schools with a total of 70 classrooms have been built, with the goal of building 117 schools in five to seven years, depending on fundraising, Armstrong said.

The location of the neighborhood school was decided in partnership with the Northern Lombok Government. Classroom of Hope also partners with NGO Happy Hearts Indonesia, which works with communities to assess local needs.

“Still haunted”

Demand for neighborhood schools is high as the school reconstruction process in northern Lombok drags on, but not all earthquake-damaged schools can be selected for the project, even though their condition appears to be dire.

Such is the case at SD 6 Pemanang Barat Primary School, a 20-minute drive from Tanjong village on a hill overlooking rice fields.

Principal Haji Juramli, 54, solemnly showed off classrooms where children attended classes under cracked ceilings, exposed metal frames and wires and hanging drywall. Despite this, the school was assessed as structurally safe.

He said he was appealing the decision to the authorities because he believed the buildings were dangerous. “The buildings are kind of falling apart, the roofs are caving in, the walls are cracked, we don’t like being in school and we’re still bothered by the situation,” he said.

While Pemanang Barat will not be rebuilt, the government has agreed to renovate the school, but the exact timing has not yet been determined. That means it won’t take on neighborhood schools because “we have to prioritize where the kids need it most — where they’re outside learning, or where there are 70 kids in a classroom,” Armstrong said. Each block school classroom costs A$22,000 (US$16,000) and the charity relies on philanthropic funding and donations.

However, the school received a donation for two toilets which are currently being built. “Children use the river all the time and girls don’t come to school when they have their period, so the toilets have an impact,” she added.

Currently, Classroom of Hope is focused on completing the school reconstruction program in Lombok, but Armstrong believes there are many other remote areas where the program could be replicated.

Fadli Usman, director of humanitarian and resilience at Save the Children Indonesia, said that based on government inspections and school self-assessments, 413,000 schools (78%) across Indonesia’s island provinces were found to be at risk in 2022. annual earthquake risk.

Environmentally sustainable approach

In recent years, the central government has been working to reduce the vulnerability of schools to earthquakes, including implementing an annual plan to repair damaged schools using reinforced concrete earthquake-resistant modular building systems, he said. However, Usman added, “more capacity and monitoring need to be transferred to the district and village levels”.

Roi Milyardi, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Christian Maranatha University in Java, said the damage standards for government-funded renovation projects in these countries are “very stringent”.

“Due to budget constraints, priority is usually given to buildings that are severely damaged, such as those with collapsed ceilings, so that buildings that are damaged but not ‘severely’ are left behind or given to local authorities for repair. Here, it depends It depends on the political will of local government officials,” he added.

Milyardi and Usman, civil engineers at Save the Children, agree that the neighborhood school program has the potential to be replicated if it is integrated into national responses as an environmentally sustainable approach to earthquake resilience.

School committee chairman Wayan Suadan, 63, said while Tanjong schools still need more facilities, including new laboratories and libraries, neighborhood schools are helping to restore a much-needed sense of normalcy.

“The earthquake had a profound impact on the educational and socio-economic background of our students as they needed comfortable learning conditions. It also took them a long time to recover from the trauma and rebuild their belief that the situation was It’s safe,” the retired civil servant said.

For Azrael’s 13-year-old classmate Azriel, they are “much more comfortable” than makeshift classrooms. Azra said they made her feel more serious. “We’re very keen on doing all the classes at the neighborhood school because it’s very unique, like Lego,” she said, adding with a smile that if their teacher doesn’t come to school, they try to find another teacher. “We want to be in the classroom.”