Hoping for Better Life in ‘Huntara’

KOMPAS/VIDELIS JEMALI

Kompas Deputy CEO Budiman Tanuredjo (second right) speaks with Palu municipal Secretary Asri L. Sawayah (right), musician Dewa Budjana (third right), Kompas Humanitarian Fund Foundation chair Rusdi Amral (third left) and Sigi Deputy Regent Paulina Martono (left) in a room of a huntara unit Thursday (01/31/2019) in Lolu village, Sigi Biromaru district, Sigi regency, Central Sulawesi. The huntara unit was built with donations from Kompas readers and the Kompas fund’s Indonesian guitarists community as temporary housing for survivors of the Central Sulawesi disaster.

Twenty-two-year-old M. Akbar was looking at the screen of his laptop. His hand moved the mouse and then returned to typing on the keyboard as he patiently read reference materials to formulate his undergraduate thesis.

“I can use my laptop comfortably in this huntara [temporary housing]. I want to submit my research proposal soon. This would have been difficult if I were still at the emergency shelter,” Akbar, a student at the Tadulako University economics school, said on Thursday (1/31/2019) in Palu, Central Sulawesi.