AFT vice president Thomas Y. Hobart Jr. provided AFT leaders with a first-hand, dramatic report of his fact-finding mission to South Asia to observe the damage caused by last December's tsunami.

Hobart was part of a delegation from Education International (EI), an organization of unions (including the AFT) representing 29 million education personnel in 165 countries and territories. The group traveled to the affected countries in mid-January. "The devastation was beyond what I had imagined," Hobart told members of the AFT executive council gathered in Orlando, Fla., Jan. 31-Feb. 2.  "It was really tough to look at. There were piles of lumber, bricks, cars and buses everywhere."

In Indonesia, Hobart said, "there were body bags lined up along the road waiting to be put into mass graves."

Hobart, along with EI general secretary Fred van Leeuwen and others, visited schools and met with teacher union leaders in Indonesia and Sri Lanka to determine how EI and its affiliates could best assist with the recovery efforts. EI estimates that more than 10,000 teachers alone died or were gravely affected by this natural disaster. (Read more about Hobart's trip through his Web log, and view video footage of his trip below.)

The teacher union in the Banda Aceh region alone of Indonesia reports that as many 1,700 of its members are dead or missing, Hobart said. In addition, both the union's new headquarters, which it had yet to occupy, and its old headquarters were destroyed by the tsunami. In the province's capitol city with a population of 440,000, an estimated 192,000 people perished.

The AFT has launched a fund-raising effort to provide assistance to education, healthcare and other public sector workers and their families affected by the disaster. The union is working through EI, Public Services International, a federation representing healthcare and public employee unions worldwide, and the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, to provide direct humanitarian aid.

One initiative being launched by EI, Hobart said, is to provide assistance to families of teacher union members who died in the tsunami as well as aid for those teachers who lost their homes and belongings. In addition, EI plans to launch a "school-to-school" program that would partner schools in Sri Lanka and Indonesia with those elsewhere in the world to provide supplies and other support to schools in those countries.

The AFT has raised more than $41,000 for the tsunami relief fund established through the AFT Educational Foundation (AFTEF); in addition, the executive council authorized an additional $30,000 contribution to the fund. At the meeting, Hobart presented checks representing nearly $15,900 raised from AFT locals and members in New York and an additional contribution of $25,000 from NYSUT's Mary Muldoon Fund, a fund named in memory of NYSUT activist.

Following Hobart's presentation the council unanimously passed a resolution expressing the union's heartfelt sympathy to the victims and their loved ones following the disaster and encouraging AFT leaders, members and affiliates to continue their support for relief efforts by contributing to the AFT Educational Foundation's tsunami relief fund.

Tax-deductible contributions should be made payable to the AFTEF and sent to the AFT Educational Foundation, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Fourth Floor, Washington, DC 20001. Please write "tsunami relief" on the memo portion of the check. [Roger Glass, Trish Gorman]

January 31, 2005

Video footage of Tom Hobart's trip to South Asia
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