By Kayla Lapiz, Linking, Learning and Communications Officer, Voice Indonesia and Philippines.

In general, the Indonesian youth continue to experience challenges in terms of accessing services concerning Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Despite the number of SRHR programs being implemented, these have not been optimised to the actual needs of youth—more so of the youth with disabilities. This is largely due to the lack of space where youth can engage and have meaningful participation in planning these programmes.

The Yayasan Sentra Advokasi Perempuan Didabel dan Anak or Sapda, an empowerment grantee of Voice Indonesia, took action to make these services more accessible and appropriate for both youth and youth with disabilities residing in Jember, East Java. Through their project “Strengthening Youth Access through SRHR Services”, they empower the youth through capacity-strengthening on social inclusion, social auditing of health services, and through reaching the wider network via campaigns and conferences. All of these were strategised to integrate the capabilities and develop support among the youth, youth with disabilities, and other social actors.  

As part of their capacity-strengthening approach, Sapda created a module on SRHR and Social Inclusion which can be used to train trainers, including those with disabilities. The module has topics such as ethics in interacting with people with disabilities, sex and gender considerations, sexually-transmitted diseases and facilitation strategies. See the module in Bahasa Indonesia below:

Sapda continues to explore ways on how they can further empower the youth on SRHR and expand their reach to involve other communities. They prove to be a learning organisation, carefully documenting their journey as they do not just leave anyone behind, but make sure that communities take the journey together.