If I kept it to myself - World YWCA

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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
Young women intervene in a world with AIDS for treatment, and hospital referrals. We also provide HIV and AIDS field training, on a oneon-one basis, and home based care training and assistance to families. We did not have our own place for our programmes, but we did get a space in the UNAIDS office to be able to operate. Being a new and small organisation with a large outreach, we are also challenged by limited human resources. To address some of these issues, we make ribbons and necklaces as a way to raise funds and pay for the volunteers’ transport. Now we rent a very small space. Even though it is small it is our own space. With funds from the Asia Pacific Leadership Foundation, PITA and Spiritia held a national workshop for 35 HIV positive women from 10 provinces in September 2005. This was the first workshop, which involved all women. It was initiated by four women and we agreed to start a national network for women living with HIV and AIDS in Indonesia. We are planning to call it Ikatan Perempuan Positif Indonesia (IPPI), and are hoping that it will soon become a reality. I got married in February 2005 to a man I love and who is willing to accept me as I am. He is HIV negative and we went through a lot of challenges together. I’m grateful that he is always with me to face difficult situations. He is a great support to me in my work on drug use and HIV and AIDS, and he helped me to register the PITA foundation. I am here today doing this work thanks to the support I get from everyone around me. I 21
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If I kept it to myself - World YWCA

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