Small steps

Now back from Jakarta, I have enjoyed reconnecting with my coworkers this week and even though it is a short one with Christmas coming up, it has been happily eventful.  The work theme for Monday leaned more towards play than work in the office since SIKOK recently acquired a complete band set.  The idea for this being that youths in the community can come play with the instruments as an alternative to trouble making and unhealthy activities.  Still, the intended purpose did not keep this silly group of coworkers from getting out the guitars themselves and creating a make believe band that we could all participate in with our previous musical skills, i.e. SIKOK director on vocals, flamboyantly gay coworker #1 on the piano, flamboyantly gay coworker #2 on the drums, and me on the viola.  Of course, we still had to prepare for Tuesday’s big HIV/AIDS event when the fun was over.

Tuesday came and the event was a creative mix of activities to (try to) keep the attending civil servants awake and increase public attention to the issues of HIV/AIDS, drug use, and the lives of waria (transgendered) in Jambi.  The program included several documentaries (one directed by aforementioned flamboyantly gay coworker #1), a skit by local high school students, and a discussion with a panelist of experts from CSOs, the Jambi Health Department, Jambi University, and the National AIDS Commission.

After lunch we came back to the office and I joined the director Helfi during a GCAC (Global Comprehensive Abortion Coverage) meeting.  One key element of this program is a group of women cadre who PKBI instructs on reproductive issues and facilitates their distribution of birth control and information about family planning to local women.  Well, the day before I had been chatting with Helfi about reproductive health challenges and needs here in Jambi and it came up that housewives are often too busy to remember to take the pill regularly, resulting in unwanted pregnancies that create larger families and burden their already challenging lives.  Hearing that, I realized I could pass on a tip from my college friends (and probably most American women) that it helps to set a daily alarm on your cell phone for when you want to take the pill so it is easy to remember.  It seems like no one at PKBI had ever thought of this and I knew it would be easy to implement with the excessive cell phone usage here (people often have up to three cell phones and are constantly connected to all of them).  So that afternoon at the GCAC meeting Helfi brought up this idea to the cadre and as the women smiled, nodded and noted the idea down I was extremely pleased to see its reception as a new idea to help family planning efforts.