Tabanan – Once more Yakeba updated its HIV and AIDS awareness directed at the general public, in an attempt to further reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS. Yakeba has been raising awareness among the general population since the year 2003.
On July 8th, 2011, Yakeba did an awareness session at Banjar Ole Delod Puri at Petiga village in the regency of Tabanan. The event was held at the request of local community leaders and is part of Yakeba’s effort to fight the HIV epidemic in Tabanan and Bali as a whole.
The event was attended by approximately 70 people consisting of community representatives, women and youth. Among the participants were also the head of Petiga village, representative of the local Police and local representatives of the Indonesian National Army (TNI). The spokesman of the event was Adi Mantara, director of Yakeba.
Yakeba also used this activity as a way to introduce itself to and strengthen its ties with the local community. Almost the entire staff of Yakeba participated at the event. Among the ones present were Fais, field coordinator of Yakeba, Artini, Care-Support-Treatment (CST) coordinator, Gusdek and Desak both outreach workers as well as Alvin, data officier.
Activities started at 7.30pm with local community leaders opening the event, followed by an introduction of the village head of Petiga village. After that Yakeba started a presentation about its journey as an organization and its HIV & AIDS prevention activities in Bali. This was mainly done in order to illustrate the changing approaches and techniques of HIV & AIDS prevention, due to the evolving nature of the epidemic and prevailing myths about the disease among the population.
During the evening, many questions were raised by members of the local community, such as how it was possible for infected people to have children, how to provide first aid to infected people after a traffic accident, how to wash the body of people suffering from AIDS, how to prevent children from contracting HIV from their mothers, how to know their HIV status and many more.
At the end of the event the local community leaders conveyed their thankfulness to Yakeba. Thanks to awareness activities like this, misconceptions and fears about the stigmatized disease can be reduced.
By:
Yakeba Team