Capacity building and networking: let’s make it fun at the same time!

We agree that it is important to create a network among young people to promote youth SRHR. First of all, the initiation process could be finding common goals to work together. Early this January, youths from  Indonesia Planned Parenthood Associations (IPPA)  ,  with other youth led organizations in Jakarta such as Women Journal Foundation  and Independent Youth Alliance  organized a joint capacity building in SRHR for young people in Jakarta area. The capacity building was targeted to Indonesian Youth Conference, a youth led community which has annual conference for young people from cross sectional field.

The capacity building was divided into four sessions: SRHR, Gender and Sexuality, Reproductive Health, and HIV AIDS and STI. In this occasion, all the participants and facilitators were young people, it very fun without fear of being negative labels. A lot of topics were raised  such as same sex marriages, safe abortion, access to contraception for youth, and even the issue of sex workers.

This capacity building is not only a place to learn but also to build linkages and network! Every year, Indonesian Youth Conference holds a conference that is attended by thousands of young people and is a very strategic avenue  to build their capacity as a community in SRHR. We do agree that this activity should be replicated in other places which youth led initiatives are present. What do you think?  😀

Photos by: Agung Pambudi

Linking sexual and reproductive rights and youth mobilization, how could that be?

What is the first thing comes to your mind when we speak about sexual and reproductive rights? When we refer to the concept, it could be very conceptual and unpractical, do you agree? We have conducted a capacity building with youth from Indonesia Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPA) and discuss a lot of hot spot issues in sexual and reproductive rights and youth mobilization!

The training was held on 11 and 12 January 2012 and each day there’s a focus on the training. On the first day, we discuss about safe abortion, same sex marriages, female circumcision, condom access for young people aged 10-17 years old, and sex workers! And guess what, the discussion becomes even hotter during the sessions and we have jump into conclusion; no matter what your personal value is, when you commit to work in SRHR field, you have to treat other people with rights-based perspective and leave the choice to them.

On the second they, the discussion was on building the organizational capacity of youth within IPPA. We mapped the participation of young people within IPPA, analyze on how we can move as youth within organization, and how to link IPPA with other youth led organization or communities in Indonesia. Based on the Flower of participation model by Choice, the analysis on the level of participation of youth in the youth center and clinic in  IPPA Jakarta Chapter can be a good example in which meaningful youth participation and youth adult partnership has been achieved. Youth in IPPA Jakarta Chapter has high responsibility within the organisation where they are given spaces to initiate their idea, and their idea are shared with the adult volunteers and staff once they are planning to make any decision. It is interesting to know how this process happened and perhaps can be a good model to be replicated in realising youth adult equal partnership.

It was found that youth in IPPA has conducted various activities and made a lot of progress in working with marginalized youths.  However, their initiative and activities are rarely documented to be read by young people or relevant people.  Most of their work goes into project report.  Well, how do you respond to this challenge to have a documentation process and to make these documents accessible to young people and all?

Investing in young people’s capacity building on SRHR!

To ensure meaningful and effective youth participation in SRHR movement, it is important to build youth’s capacity particularly within issues and how to manage the organization’s sustainability. Japan Family Planning Association on 23-24^th December 2011 conducted a training and exchange meetings with peer counsellor across Japan. This national convention was held to increase young people’s skills in doing peer education for adolescents.

The two-day training was filled with training talks  and contraceptive exhibition. There were about 100 people participating in this training. Besides getting training, they also presented their work in youth center  in each province and shared their common goals to move forward as a part of JFPA.

It was interesting that the participants also distributed educational materials such as brochure on STI, Dating Violence, and condoms at the end of the training!

Do you have plans to conduct training with young people on  SRHR ? What material that you would like to be integrated within the training? Do tell us! 😀