Living with natural disasters: The view from the street

By Conor Seyle, PBB Research Officer

This is a picture of Mt. Merapi, as seen from Yogyakarta.  Mt. Merapi is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia, and as can be seen it’s very close to Yogyakarta.  Its last significant eruption was in 2006

Resilience, recovery, and dirty pictures

By Conor Seyle, PBB Research Officer

In 2006, the Bantul region of Indonesia was hit by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people and left more than a million homeless. Now, more than two years later, Psychology Beyond Borders is working in the area to address the long-lasting distress of children from the affected region. As a part of a recent trip, PBB staff and staff from the faculty of psychology at Sanata Dharma University in nearby Yogyakarta worked to uncover the way that this distress is expressed in the Indonesian population.

Two years after an enormous impact, what did parents identify as the most significant problem facing their children? If you think it was PTSD, you’re wrong. The most commonly identified problem facing children in the area we’re working in is “terlau banyak main”: playing too much. Parents complained that children did not do their chores, or study, but instead preferred to spend too much time playing games with other children. Other parents complained about the ready availability of dirty pictures and “blue films” that the children could download from the internet and onto their cell phones.