PROFILE: Rina Meutia
Clinton School of Public Service Student and Bush-Clinton Fellow

The moment the Asian tsunami hit the Indonesian coast December 2004, Rina Meutia and her family fled their home in fear for their lives. After reaching the neighborhood mosque, she scrambled to the second floor and waited as water continued rising until it was midway up her chest.

"As a Muslim, if you have to die, you want to die in the mosque," Meutia says, explaining why everyone in her neighborhood rushed to the local place of worship. Fortunately, the building's solid structure and a nearby mountain helped block the rushing water just enough to spare the lives of Meutia and her family.

The scene of this unimaginable disaster is Banda Aceh, the provincial capital city of Aceh, Indonesia, in a suburban neighborhood about seven kilometers off the coast of the island of Sumatra. Meutia was visiting with her mother, a public school teacher, in their living room just before 8 a.m. when the first earthquake, registering a magnitude of 9.3, rocked their home. After two more large quakes, the water swept through, tragically causing more than 180,000 deaths.

But as is often the case, great stories of inspiration and compassion are born from despair. For months, 18 orphaned boys, many of them brothers, resided in the mosque that sheltered Meutia and her family during the tsunami. Instead of being dispersed to orphanages throughout Indonesia, the neighborhood's residents welcomed each of the 18 children into their households, giving weight to the age-old saying "It takes a village."

Meutia dedicated her life to picking up the pieces left behind by the great tidal wave. As part of her summer public service project for the Clinton School, she worked for the World Bank's Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. In her spare time she raises small amounts of money and procures other items to send home to the 18 boys.

In fall 2006, Meutia asked each of her Clinton School classmates for $5. She wanted to give the boys something to help with their future. Though Meutia preferred to keep her purposes for the money secret, once word was out, larger donations began to come in, and she decided to give the boys something everyone needs-a checking account.

Later, Meutia and Clinton School Dean Skip Rutherford teamed up for another endeavor to help the boys. "The dean asked me to find out what gifts they want from America," she says. And after a phone call home to her father, the answer came back-American T-shirts and watches, so the boys could tell time. A care package was sent the next day. While these items and dollar amounts may be small in American terms, Meutia explains, they go a long way in her disaster-torn province, where most of the 260,000 residents live on less than $1 a day.

Before the tsunami, Indonesia was in the midst of a 28-year civil war. At age 19, Meutia began working for the United Nations in Aceh, assisting humanitarian efforts surrounding the war. "I lived in the conflict area for 20 years," she says. "I had to come home before six o'clock each night or I could get killed. Because I lived in that kind of condition, it's easy to get into that kind of work," she says, shying away from the label of public servant.

Ironically, it was Meutia's desire to serve her own community that took her so far from home and led her to apply for the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. Having met President Bill Clinton at the U.N. office in Aceh in 2005, Meutia had no idea that she would soon study public service at the school bearing his name.

Meutia graduates in December and becomes one of a select group to earn a Master of Public Service degree from the Clinton School. She plans to return home and help her father, a retired government employee, open a school for the underprivileged in her neighborhood. Following that, Meutia has greater ambitions: "I want to become governor of Aceh," she says with a smile.