Two inspiring youths from Indonesia wish to make healthcare access more inclusive during this pandemic through their campaign on “Accessible Healthcare for People with Disabilities.” During the 2nd ASEAN Youth Social Journalism Contest 2021, they have built solid collaboration to raise awareness on this issue and amplify their outreach. 

What have you learned from the programme? 

Through the workshop, we have learned how to design, implement, and evaluate a campaign through social media with our mentor. We learned how to utilize and optimize social media features technically to support our campaign. We also learned many unique ideas from other teams. Their youth spirit and fresh ideas were assets to make changes for the public good. We are really grateful to join this program, learn from mentors, and connect with our peers. 

What is your campaign about? 

Our campaign was on advocacy for accessible healthcare for people with disabilities (PWDs) during the pandemic. PWDs vulnerability increased during pandemic yet they face many barriers in accessing healthcare. We start our campaign by raising the public’s awareness on disability e.g., what disability is, what the burden of disability is in Indonesia, why do we need to be aware, and so on. We use a Facebook Page to conduct our campaign. In the beginning, we were skeptical that our campaign would be followed by many people. We thought that, even if we only had 100 followers, we would be grateful. 

How did you promote your campaign? 

We engaged PWDs and local disabled people organizations (DPO) to plan the campaign and to better understand the context of PWDs problem. We interview several PWDs to better understand their disabilities and challenges related to their condition.  

In the second phase of our campaign, we met PWDs virtually to discuss and share their challenges in accessing healthcare facilities particularly related to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. PWDs with various types of disabilities were invited. All the invited were present except those with intellectual and mental disabilities. From these discussions, we developed content to be uploaded for the page. 

During the period of the campaign, the first mass COVID-19 for PWDs was held in Yogyakarta. We went to the location where the vaccination was conducted. We met several people such as the committee, volunteers, and vaccine receivers. We observed the vaccination organization and accessibility. We made media from this observation for our campaign with the expectation that other regions would be aware to facilitate PwDs to get a vaccination.  

In collaboration with our workplace and KAGAMA (UGM alumni family), we held a webinar. This webinar aimed to share lessons learned from mass vaccination for PWDs in Yogyakarta. Previously, we planned to hold the webinar inviting speakers from those who were involved in mass vaccination for PWDs such as Yogyakarta Provincial Health Office, the volunteers, and the vaccine receivers. However, when KAGAMA joined the team, this webinar became bigger. We invited The Minister of Social Affair, Ibu Tri Rismaharini, the president staff, Mr.Ari Dwipayana and Ms.Angkie Yudistia as keynote speakers. From this webinar, around 35 online media wrote news about vaccination for PWDs. It was expected that other provinces or districts would be triggered to provide inclusive services for vaccination for PWDs.  

What did you gain from this programme? 

Overall from this campaign, we met many people, built a network, and gained understanding from the other perspective through this process. It was an eye-opening process that we could learn something that we had never imagined before.  

Edited by: Chiara Nathania, Communications Intern