If I kept it to myself - World YWCA

If I kept it to myself
Frika Chia Iskandar
At the time, I did not know anything. All I knew
was shame, but now I am here to save lives.
Mostly because of peer pressure, at the age of
16, in my native Jakarta, Indonesia, I started
sharing heroin using hypodermic needles with
drug users who thought it was ‘cool’. When I
was 18 years old, I went into rehabilitation in
the Harapan Permata Hati Kita Foundation in
the Bogor region, which provides detoxification,
counselling, and therapy for young drug users.
Before I went into rehabilitation, I was treated
in one of the private hospitals in Jakarta. While
unconscious and undergoing detoxification in
the hospital, the doctor tested me for HIV and
Hepatitis C. It came out that I was co-infected.
I returned home. It was a horrible experience,
as I did not receive any information about HIV.
All I felt was fear, uselessness and anger. Not
long after that I was lucky to find a place, which
accepts drug users who are HIV positive for
rehabilitation, because there are many centres
in Indonesia that do not. It is here that I became
active in the peer self support group and learnt a
lot about HIV, Hepatitis C and drug use.
At the time, I didn’t know anything. All I knew was
shame, but now I’m here to save lives. Now I
feel that I can be something and useful for other
people again. I believe that by helping other
people, I am helping myself too.
Shortly after my rehabilitation, I joined the
Indonesia PLWHA (people living with HIV and
AIDS) Network and worked at the Spiritia
Foundation, which is the secretariat of the
network, as a field manager until the beginning
of this year. Spiritia is a non-governmental
organisation that has been working with and
for people living with HIV and AIDS since 1995.
It pioneered the creation of such a network in
20
Indonesia, and its vision is to provide quality care
and support, while respecting the human rights
of PLWHA in Indonesia. Spiritia is supporting the
involvement of PLWHA by organising training,
resources and information; this is tremendously
important in a country as large and diverse as
Indonesia.
Initially I experienced discrimination from
my family. They might have freaked out and
discriminated against me at home, but I came
to understand that it was out of fear and
lack of information. I believe that parents will
always accept their children no matter what the
situation. There is no such thing as an ex-child
or former child. And in 2003 we started PITA, a
support group for parents who have HIV positive
children. This is another peer approach that I
find really helpful. Parents also need to share
their feelings and experiences.
I do not live in the same house as them anymore,
as I am now married and we have our own home,
but we live in the same city.
I am now active with the PITA foundation, which
was officially registered in mid 2005. It carries
out support activities for PLWHA and affected
communities (including parents who have HIV
positive children, husbands, wives, brothers,
sisters) because I know that HIV positive people
should not live alone, as we need support and
love from our family and friends, and they need
support too. Using the peer prevention approach,
PITA also involves student volunteers from
university. The students develop information and
education communication material and write
newspaper articles. PITA’s activities include
counselling, providing buddy support systems