Enhancing community resilience towards disaster: The contributing factors of school-community collaborative network in the tsunami affected area in Aceh

As a social subsystem that is an inextricable part of the community, schools have the potential to play a role as a principal actor in building community resilience against disasters through their mandate for education, information sharing, and their broad stakeholder networks. This study aims to examine the current status of the school-community collaborative network and its contributing factors in enhancing disaster resilience in the tsunami risk area in Aceh. In the first part of this paper, we analyzed the findings from a study in coastal areas of Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar to explore the current condition of the school-community collaboration. In the second part, we analyzed the findings from a study in coastal areas of Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar to explore the current condition of the school-community collaboration. The study was conducted using a case study methodology. The data collection involved in-depth interviews with six teachers and six school principals, Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) at six schools, questionnaire survey to 148 teachers and school principals in 37 schools, and a workshop of 30 participants that come from schools, school committees, government, community leader, universities, and NGOs. The steps involved in identifying the network stakeholders, the strength of the relationship between parties in the network, and the opportunities and challenges schools face in building relationships. This study demonstrates that school-community collaborative network can be an active and needed support for the school itself while also providing a mutual benefit to the other stakeholders in the network. Some factors that contributed to strong school-community collaborative network were also identified.