Echoing the spirit of the 94th anniversary of the Youth Pledge in Indonesia, we would like to share stories about the involvement of young people in bridging multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral collaboration behind the Inclusive COVID-19 Vaccination Week Festival in 5 districts in South Sulawesi during June – July 2022. Through support from The Australia Indonesia Partnership for Health Security (AIHSP), IDCOMM acts as a collaborator bringing together many parties, from local governments, universities, disabled people organizations (DPOs), and the community at the grassroots level.

This cross-sectoral collaboration involved the local government agencies (Health Office, Bappelitbangda or the Planning Agency, Social Service, Population and Civil Registration Office, Education and Special School Service), Hasanuddin University Makassar, PKK (family welfare and empowerment organizations), and organizations of people with disabilities such as Indonesian Women with Disabilities Association (HWDI) Pinrang, Indonesian Disability Movement for Equality (PERDIK) South Sulawesi, Movement for the Welfare of the Indonesian Deaf (GERKATIN), Indonesian Blind Association (PERTUNI), Community of Parents of Children with Down Syndrome (KOADS), and many more. In this initiative, AIHSP initiated a meeting to oversee the consolidation of data collection for persons with disabilities in various regions in South Sulawesi.

Through this encounter, we hope that having a data collection system that is more sensitive to vulnerable groups can help vulnerable people such as persons with disabilities to get their rights, including accessing essential services, such as COVID-19 vaccination and other basic services. In this initiative, we also support emphasizing the importance of equal access to information for groups of persons with disabilities.

This collaboration kept going and later was manifested in the Inclusive COVID-19 Vaccination Week Festival in 5 districts, namely Maros, Enrekang, Pinrang, Gowa, and Bone Regencies. During the event, at least 760 people were vaccinated. These include 371 women, 186 people with disabilities, and 32 elderly people. In addition, we also note there were 152 people accessing the civil registration service which was provided along with the vaccination.

Zakia, one of the crew members as well as a young administrator of PERDIK South Sulawesi who has been actively involved since the preparations, really appreciated the process which involved young people with disabilities from the beginning. She emphasized that this is a participation model that has always been coveted by persons with disabilities.

"There is a principle among persons with disabilities, namely 'nothing about us without us'," she said.

"The creation of guidelines of inclusive Covid-19 vaccination, from the beginning, has involved colleagues with different types of disabilities and come from various organizations," explained Zakia.

Bronwyn Robins, the Consul General of Australia’s Consulate General in Makassar on another occasion showed her appreciation for this effort. Although on a small scale, this initiative in providing a truly inclusive vaccination service has successfully encouraged the Provincial Health Office to adapt and replicate this model across the 24 districts of South Sulawesi.

“From this experience we can see the importance of everyone working together,” she said.

This collaboration was also made possible by youth involvement, such as local DPOs and Hasannudin University members. The strength of the grassroots community bond gave the power to echo the promotion of this event to other sub-districts, reaching out to people with disabilities who were not on our 'radar'.

Acting Head of the South Sulawesi Provincial Health Office, dr. Arman Bausat, Sp.B, Sp.OT stated that his office had compiled guidelines for the implementation of an inclusive COVID-19 vaccination with a number of DPOs, through which health workers learned a lot about how to interact with people with disabilities.

"This new understanding for health workers about the ethics of interacting with persons with disabilities and the elderly is as important as achieving the target number of vaccine recipients," he said, confirming the socialization of this learning message to all 24 local health offices at the district/city level.

To summarize, AIHSP Team Leader John Leigh emphasized the importance of this effort for stronger national health security in the future within the One Health framework.

"We are not protected until everyone is protected. Meeting the needs of public information related to risk communication that is more accessible and inclusive must be pursued by all parties,” said John.

“This is to ensure that all people with different backgrounds and different needs, such as persons with disabilities, the elderly, women, and other vulnerable groups, can access information and public services appropriately and conveniently.”

Our documentation team managed to summarize this series of activities into the 5 videos below. 

Read our findings and policy recommendations on how to pursue a more inclusive risk communication strategy for people with disability in South Sulawesi in our Research section.