Indonesia and Tsunami in Bande Aceh

At the start of 2005 the Board of GMA decided that humanitarian mapping in Bande Aceh, N.Sumatra might be helpful. A team consisting of Frank Chang (USA & China) and Rupert Douglas-Bate (UK) was dispatched in March. They found that the University of Syiah Kuala, Bande Aceh had a small mapping cell in the Mathematics department that wanted some training in GIS and data collection. Dr Hizir Sofyan (Head of Department) and Muzailin Affan (Head of GIS cell) were most interested to collaborate and they signed a Partnership Agreement with GMA.

	Distruction of Villages

In July 2005 GMA duly dispatched Erin Kees (USA) on a training mission, in response to the needs. He worked mostly with math students who were highly motivated to learn as much as possible about geographic information systems. The excellent maps they produced, as well as photos of both March and July missions are on the Maps and Photos page.

THANK YOU !

GMA is very grateful to all of it's volunteers and donors including Vodafone-US Foundation, Omidyar Foundation, Reuters Foundation and ESRI.