Pamela Boardman, teacher at the Ysgol Friars High School in Wales

The time in Banda Aceh was an incredible experience. I had not fully understood the extent of the work carried out by Education International. The highlight of the trip was the visits to some of the completed Primary schools. All of the children were excited and pleased to see us and proudly showed us their classrooms and their work. We went to the official opening of one of the schools. We were treated like VIP’s and watched with delight the welcome ceremonies performed by the children in their traditional costumes.

On another day we visited one of the secondary schools, all of the pupils turned out to welcome us, hundreds of them. We attended a trauma counselling session, and then listened while 2 of the students told their stories of the tsunami. They were very brave to stand up in front of so many people and tell such emotional stories. At the end of this session all of the students in our party stood up and told the pupils in the class how they felt about Banda Aceh. They were greeted with cheers and applause, and then the pupils all clamoured around us and wanted to have their picture taken with us. This was a very emotional experience to see these pupils who had gone through a terrible time showing such courage and joy in life.






On the first day in Banda Aceh we visited the beach where the tsunami had first struck the land. I stood looking out sea and tried to imagine a 30metre wave coming towards me. Behind was a view of destruction, an area of swamp which used to be houses, yet in front of me I was looking at a beautiful sunset over the mountains and sea. This summed up the whole trip, a mixture of sadness, tragedy, beauty, friendship and hope for the future.

The party was made up of people of different ages from 17 to over 60, and 8 different nationalities. By the end of the week we had seen so much that we felt as if we had known each other for years. Everybody agreed that the week has been an amazing and life changing experience. The work done by Education International in Banda Aceh was impressive and largely because of 2 inspirational men Mr Jerome Fernandez and Mr Aloysius Matthews.
Since we have come home I have shown the photographs and talked about the trip with all of my pupils. We are arranging for the 2 students to give presentations in assemblies to each of the different year groups, and to the school council. They have also been invited to give a presentation at the annual conference of the NUT. We are going to establish a link with the secondary school that we visited, and some emails have already been sent. Also we are arranging for publicity in the local newspapers.