"Hi, I'm Fika. A mother of 2 daughters. I currently live in Sumberjaya Village, Sumur District, Pandeglang Regency. My husband and I are not natives here. It was work and travel that made us decide to fight together and form a family in this seaside village," Fika explained.

First of all, everything went well. Fika was happy with her husband's work, and all activities went according to expectations. Until one day, the tsunami struck at the end of 2018, and Sumur District was one of the worst affected. "At the time of the incident, I was taking care of my sister who was being treated at the hospital, my husband was on guard duty on Umang Island with 5 of his friends, and my son was alone at home. Imagining the incident and being away from home made me nervous; it was difficult to keep calm as my husband and our son couldn't be contacted due to a signal loss.

"Alhamdulillah, thank God, all the villagers survived; there was not a single casualty. My son survived and even helped a mother take shelter on the highland. My husband was injured, his leg pierced iron while tossed in the sea, and he was rescued by fishers the next day. It took him three months to recover physically and even longer to gain the strength to return to his previous activities. He was still in shock when he heard a loud noise. Our hearts were crushed when we went downhill back to the village. Everything we had disappeared overnight. We were confused; where are we going to take shelter?" Fika told her side of the story as a survivor.

Now that's all the past stories, like it or not. We must look forward, regain our social life, and recover from the significant loss. The collaboration program of PATTIRO Banten and YAPPIKA-ActionAid helped the recovery. "We got a lot of useful knowledge and learned new things that we had never encountered before, such as how to live better in disaster areas, prepare a kit that is always ready when needed, control ourselves when facing a disaster, and get to know nature and surrounding areas better, prepare a village disaster risk assessment document to be submitted by the village government to the district authority. This document can be adopted in village planning and budgets." Fika explained clearly about the disaster preparedness program that she was participating in.

"But the biggest change is inside of me; now I see the opportunities and bring out the deepest abilities I never knew before. Initially, I joined the Carnation community, a group of women who produce snacks. Furthermore, several communities here formed at the Sumber Jaya Women's Cooperative Group. Siti Maspupa and I are the administrators and manage this cooperative group." Fika explained the beginning of the women's cooperative group.

 "Being the chairperson of the Sumberjaya Women's Paguyuban cooperative forced us to learn many things related to cooperatives, such as bookkeeping, financial management, business feasibility studies and assisting in obtaining business permits for cooperative members. At the beginning of its establishment, we managed to raise IDR 500,000 in funds, and so far, after three months of being formed, the funds have increased to almost ten times." Fika said.

Establishing the Women's Association cooperative in Sumberjaya village further strengthens this collaboration and community that is being pioneered. This cooperative collects essential and mandatory savings from the members and the funds collected are then managed and utilized by members. "With this cooperative group, members feel it is beneficial if they need capital for their business and other urgent needs. This is a promising alternative because before there was a cooperative group if there was an urgent need for funds, people used the services of moneylenders; of course, the interest rates were very high. Small entrepreneurs sometimes need small funds to start a business, only around 100200 thousand rupiahs." Fika explained proudly and full of hope.

"However, there are still challenges that we are currently facing, including the lack of awareness of the residents about disaster response, making it difficult to apply a sense of vigilance to them, the thick patriarchal culture, the common response of village officials, the lack of courage of residents in expressing themselves both in channelling ideas, ideas or activities. Even handling the problem of Domestic Violence that often occurs. To face these challenges, we, the focal point for women in Sumberjaya village, always provide counselling and information about the issues that are a problem here." She elaborated further.

"Currently, many other families and I live in the Huntap (Permanent Shelter) built for tsunami victims. The advantage is that we can coordinate easily because we are not constrained by distance. In this shelter,  Rompok Awewe (Sundanese:  Women House) is also available, a women's safe house as a place for women to empower themselves, sponsored by PATTIRO Banten & YAPPIKA-ActionAid. Also to increase women's creativity and capacity through various activities to fill spare time with useful activities, including the cooperative of the Women's Association of Sumberjaya Village, which I lead," explained Fika, closing our conversation that afternoon.