Ground Broken in Banda Aceh for
Roosevelt Island House

by Ted Kyser

Jim Luce is back on Roosevelt Island. He's been away for three weeks, cutting deals like an international investment banker.

Thing is, Luce's deals are cut on behalf of orphans. One of those deals, and an outpouring of effort and support from his fellow Roosevelt Islanders, has led to the opening of Roosevelt Island House in Lubuk, outside the city of Banda Aceh, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. If it sounds familiar, that's because the area was pulverized by the December 26 tsunami and, as it happened, Luce was already in the area working on establishment of the Orphans International campus there.

Orphans International is his creation, passion, and personal mission. Conceived and started on Roosevelt Island, it has houses in Bali, in Sulawesi (the former Celebes Islands in Indonesia), and Banda Aceh. Another will open July 2 in Haiti, another sometime this summer in Guyana, and another next spring in Peru.

Roosevelt Islanders have put themselves in harness for O.I. A couple of weeks ago, the Visual Art Association (RIVAA) held an art auction and raised $2,000. The Quran Society donated $450. Ethel Grodzins Romm, a Rivercross resident, told family members to celebrate her 80th birthday by giving to the building of Grodzins House; overnight, she raised more than enough to build it. And on March 19, a fundraiser at Manhattan Park Theater Club raised over $10,000.

Luce has raised funds widely, and he's found ways to leverage what he's raised: Two Jakarta medical schools and Médecins du Monde, a pan-European organization of medical professionals, will partner in creation of a health center focused on tsunami trauma. Architects Without Borders will design a 40-acre campus to be built in Lubuk. And the Wharton School is sending a team of three professionals to Sulawesi, Bali, and Aceh to draft an operating standard for O.I. - the "Orphans International Standard" - that will one day serve as the standard for judging the facilities and work of orphanages across the world. A team from Stanford University will do follow-up this summer.

"The destruction in Aceh is massive," Luce said Wednesday in a conversation with The WIRE over coffee at Trellis. "The photos and television footage look like someone has picked out a patch of junkyard to photograph. But it's worse. TV can't show it as it is. It's endless. Endless destruction. You cannot possibly imagine the scale of it. I can only compare it - the enormity of it - to Hiroshima." He says there are refugee camps everywhere.

"What strikes me is how much we have done with funding that is relatively small compared to the big international relief agencies," he adds. "We have something real, in place on the ground, working. When I look around there, I have to wonder what the big international relief agencies are doing."

O.I. has set out to raise "citizens of the world" by taking a comprehensive approach to the lives of the orphans placed in its care: health, housing, community and family life (a small handful of kids live with houseparents in each dwelling unit, some 80 children in Banda Aceh), and education now and in the future.

The world and "mainstream" media have begun to take notice of O.I. The New York Post ran a photo and story last week. People Magazine has interviewed Luce, and CNN is working up a story. By every standard, Orphans International is a runaway success - but the critical standard becomes apparent when you review photos from the O.I. campus in Banda Aceh: Kids who lost their homes and entire families just four months ago have a home, and they are smiling and laughing.

Contributions to O.I. are tax-deductible, and they can be sent to: Orphans International, 540 Main Street #418, Roosevelt Island, NYC10044. The O.I. website is oiww.org.