Badung, Until now Yayasan Kesehatan Bali (Yakeba) still have a big commitment to support Badung regency government to end AIDS with another NGOs. This can be seen from the collaboration between Yakeba and the Badung District AIDS Commission (KPA) and the Badung District Health Office in carrying out the work on HIV prevention in the work area of Badung Regency. The continuous development is along with the development of services and support for HIV in Badung Regency.
As one of the board of KPA of Badung Regency in the field of Monitoring and Evaluation, from 17 April 2017 until 19 April 2017 Yakeba played the role of Monitoring and Evaluation (Monev) with Yayasan Citra Usadha Indonesia (YCUI). Yakeba is represented by I Made Adi Mantara, SH as Director and YCUI represented by Drs Made Efo Suarmiartha as Director. Things that monitored related to the HIV prevention program in Badung regency are 62 HIV – AIDS field outreach workers supported by the government funds of Badung district’s since the beginning of 2017.
This Monev activity is also interspersed with briefing and strengthening point of view towards epidemic of HIV development in Badung regency. The activities were carried out within a few days due to the large number of officers and the different distribution of the number of officers in each characteristic of the region. The first day of monev was conducted on field officers working in Mengwi sub-district. Then on the second day was done to field officers working in Abiansemal sub-district. And the last day is done for field officers who work in 4 districts, namely sub-district Kuta, sub-district of Kuta Utara, sub-district Kuta Selatan and sub-district Petang.
The general picture that can be seen is that almost all villages in Badung regency have field officers. And they are targeting the general public who are indigenous people and migrants who are in the village area and they are not targeting to the high risk groups. Their duties only provide information and some have started to refer to health services. The public response to the presence of these officers is very positive; it can be seen from their willingness to listen to the information provided.
However, there are always challenges encountered, among others, some officers are still lacking confidence in delivering the information, they just have of basic HIV information has not led to more comprehensive information on HIV, lack of supporting media in providing information (such as brochures and flipchart) and still lack the skills in communication and forum facilitated. Some of these challenges will be solved in a series of strengthening that will be done in the future.
The results of this activity together with Badung KPA and Badung District Health Office were reported to Vice Regent of Badung as the Daily Chief of KPA of Badung Regency. In the hope that this process can give an idea to him to improve the quality and quantity of field officers in the future.
Field officers are one of the important pillars of the HIV interventions, they are the foremost people who will target and encourage people to test HIV. So that their role should be supported and maximized, and time and experience will provide space or process in improving skills in providing information in the field. Like Yakeba’s experience with YCUI in working on the field in the last decade.