Communities & Civil Society Responds to COVID-19 in Indonesia
> Communities & Civil Society Actions and Solidarity in Response to COVID-19 > Communities & Civil Society Responds to COVID-19 in Indonesia
The Positive Indonesia Network (JIP) is a national network of people living with HIV and currently functions as an SSR of the Global Fund under the Indonesia AIDS Coalition (IAC) for the implementation of Community System Strengthening and Enabling Environment to Access Services programs. The main focus of JIP during the COVID-19 outbreak is to prevent People Living with HIV from being exposed to Coronavirus.
In response to COVID-19, together with other key populations community networks, JIP has made a Rapid Response Survey to identify the situations faced by PLHIV because of COVID-19 as well as assessing their needs regarding access to health services. JIP has been able to gather 1,000 responses and the results have been presented at the HIV Technical Working Group meeting with the participation of the Ministry of Health officials, representatives from UN agencies, and other key stakeholders. The survey results could be found here.
While daily operations have been interrupted because of the social distancing measures imposed by the Government of Indonesia, JIP has implemented innovative measure to ensure the continuation of their work.
-
- Community System Strengthening and Enabling Environment for Access activities in 12 cities and six provinces are now being carried out virtually by focal points and paralegals instead of organizing in-person meetings.
- Focal points and paralegals utilize a variety of communication media and applications to organize meetings online such as skype, zoom, google hangouts, What’s App video call, and others.
- Paralegal staff and focal points have been instructed to follow COVID-19 prevention guidelines and are currently working on;
- Compiling a list of COVID-19 response policies in each provincial/district health offices and health services, especially those related to ARV treatment.
- Conduct coordination with provincial/district health offices and health services in their respective areas, associated with the availability of ARV stock and provision of ARV for more than one month to prevent transmission of COVID-19 to PLHIV when visiting health services.
- Populating information related to COVID-19 prevention for people living with HIV and key populations.
Spiritia Foundation, GFAN AP country partners in Indonesia, is the Principal Recipient of the HIV component of the Global Fund National Grant in Indonesia. Amidst the lockdowns to halt the spread of COVID-19, Spiritia Foundation still continues its engagement with over 80 SR and SSR organizations including 2000 outreach workers and peer supporters in 200 districts. Spirita Foundations has provided masks and hand sanitizers to staff members of the SR and SSR organization with the support of the Global Fund.
Spiritia Foundation has issued a new policy to outreach workers and peer educators to work virtually and provide support to their existing clients and starting from April will be delivering some training activities to communities virtually. Together with other CS organizations, Spiritia Foundation has established an ART task force team to advocate with the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Indonesia and the Global Fund to ensure adequate ART stocks and has also coordinated with the MOH to ensure access to ART services for PLHIV and is currently monitoring the situation and providing support on a case by case basis.