4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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1) The initial impetus was the continued practice of child marriage, and the fact that child marriages accounted for 50.92% of total marriages in Bondowoso. Research conducted by PKBI also revealed that only 52% of mothers with children under the age of two had completed elementary school.
2) Following the survey, the district head issued Bondowoso District Head Regulation 41/2012 on Safe Delivery and Immediate and Exclusive Breastfeeding; the regulation aims to make childbirth safer for all women, and included adolescent reproductive health services. District decrees 188.45/450.A/430.6.2/2012 and No.188.45/1698/430.6.2/2013 were also issued, creating the position of Bunda Kespro and appointing the wives of village, sub-district, and district chiefs in Bondowoso as promoters of ARH.
3) It was determined, however, that government officials alone would not be sufficient to promote the program. Religious leaders, teachers, health staff, NGOs, women’s groups and young people themselves were enlisted as the primary agents for implementing the ARH program, as they interacted daily and directly with their local communities.
4) Training on ARH was provided by the government and NGO partners to students, the teachers, health workers, and religious leaders. Training was based on interactive activities relevant to each role. For example, a seven-minute sermon competition with the topic of reproductive health, was attended by 50 religious leaders. The leaders then delivered the sermons in their local communities. Teachers were taught how to incorporate ARH information into the school curriculum and lesson plans.
5) A major and unique element of the program was the inclusion of ARH education in the school orientation program for new students in junior and senior high schools. The Bondowoso Education Agency also collaborated with local NGO Edelweiss to conduct ad-hoc outreach activities, while the teachers’ group visited each sub-district to promote ARH issues among local officials and parents.
6) An ARH festival was held, at which the message of delayed marriage was disseminated. Organized under the theme "My health, my future – We embody a healthy, qualified and dignified generation", the festival was held at the offices of the district head and drew around 400 participants, including students from junior and senior high schools in Bondowoso, community leaders, women’s groups, village chiefs, and the media.
7) For teenagers, training events and competitions involving writing articles, making short videos and creating posters related to reproductive health were held. The response was very positive. For each training session, only 50 seats were available, yet more than 300 students signed up. Teenagers were trained on video making and article writing. The videos they produced conveyed the message that it is preferable for teenage girls to stay at school rather than to marry early. They included interviews with women who married early, including one at the age of 12, who encouraged young girls not to follow their examples but to stay in school and continue their education.
8) Duta kespro were appointed among teens and senior local figures to promote ARH among their peer groups. As well as their roles as peer educators, the duta kespro formed unofficial monitoring and evaluation groups with the express purpose of learning about local families who might be intending to marry off adolescent daughters, with a view to persuading the families to delay the marriage and keep the girl at school.
9) Local radio in Bondowoso routinely provided airtime for the topic of reproductive health and the prevention of child marriage during the hours teens usually listened to the radio, particularly on Saturdays. Large numbers of teens tuned in and asked questions on ARH problems faced by teenagers.
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5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The initiative for this program came from the district head following intense advocacy from the community. The district head gave the mandate to his wife, dubbed Bunda Kespro, to act as the “umbrella” for the program, in conjunction with the local administration and a number of NGOs and community forums, to promote ARH issues with a view to reducing child marriage.
Since child marriage was so deeply embedded in the culture of the local people, particularly in rural areas, a substantial number of stakeholders needed to be involved to ensure the program’s success. They included local and national government and non-governmental agencies, including the district’s health, education, and family planning agencies; the newly-formed Multi-Stakeholder Forum (MSF); PKBI; the National Ministry for Women’s Empowerment; Edelweiss; YKP (Yayasan Kesehatan Perempuan, Women’s Health Foundation); Kampung Halaman, a youth-focused NGO; PKK, which represents female public officials and the wives of officials; women’s community groups; local male community leaders; teachers, both in their official teaching role and also as promoters of ARH issues in teachers’ associations; religious figures including male Islamic leaders and teachers, as well as female religious groups; local teenagers and students, particularly through involvement in Komunitas Langit Biru and as duta kespro; and local media and citizen journalists. The movement was further supported by an international organization USAID-KINERJA, who provided funding for the NGOs to better support the Bondowoso administration in its ARH program.
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6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The implementation of the reproductive-health activities specifically targeted at teens was supported by various components.
The funds disbursed from the local administration’s budget amounted to:
2011 - Rp 249,030,500 [US$ 20,366], comprising Rp 246,818,000 from the district family planning agency, and Rp 2,212,500 from the health agency.
2012 - Rp 253,421,012 [US$ 20,725], comprising Rp 244,619,000 from the district family planning agency, Rp 3,800,000 from the health agency and Rp 5,000,000 from the education agency.
2013 - Rp 158,275,000 [US$12,944], comprising Rp 152,775,000 from the district family planning agency and Rp 5,500,000 from the health agency.
2014 - Rp 197,907,500 [US$ 16,149], comprising Rp 171,050,000 from the district family planning agency and Rp 26,857,500 from the health agency.
USAID-KINERJA supported Yayasan Kesehatan Perempuan (YKP) to work with the local administration to implement the ARH program, and was funded to the amount of Rp 553,271,000 [US$ 45,615] by an international aid program. YKP also contributed Rp 23,050,000 [US$ 2,000] of their own funds to the program.
In addition to this funding, two media outlets provided assistance: local radio station Radio Pasopati aired one-hour ARH talk-shows on six occasions worth Rp 2,100,000 [US$ 172], and Radar Jember, a local newspaper, published a half page of ARH coverage worth Rp 15,600,000 [US$1,274].
The value of human-resource activity by teachers, activists, religious and community leaders, KK members, Komunitas Langit Biru etc. was substantial. However, as it was largely provided voluntarily, a specific monetary value cannot be placed on it.
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7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The following outputs were achieved over the course of the ARH program in Bondowoso:
a. The inclusion of adolescent health into the new Bondowoso district head regulation on safe delivery and immediate and exclusive breastfeeding was a highly successful output of the program. District decree 188.45/450.A/430.6.2/2012 followed, which appointed the district head’s wife as Bunda Kespro to coordinate the implementation of ARH promotion in schools and local communities throughout the district. This was followed by the issuance of district decree No.188.45/1698/430.6.2/2013, which saw the wives of village, sub-district, and district chiefs in Bondowoso take up roles as promoters of ARH and in the campaign to reduce child marriages. There are currently 219 district chiefs’ wives and 23 village chiefs’ wives involved in the program.
b. The creation of a peer-to-peer ARH education program is a significant output. Training and awareness-raising on ARH issues is crucial to reduce and eventually eliminate child marriages in the district. The peer-to-peer activities involve all age groups, not only among teens and students but also among their parents, teachers and community leaders.
c. As mentioned above, for the first time teens have been actively included in the programs to improve ARH education and the need to reduce child marriages. The initiative has led to the creation of duta kespro, a position of some status among teens and students. These ambassadors are able to address issues and concerns relevant to reproductive and sexual health issues and act along with other stakeholders as informal monitors of the child marriage situation in the district.
d. ARH education is now an integral part of the student initiation program for all new junior and senior high school students throughout the district and is also being incorporated into the wider school curriculum.
e. Concerned teachers have created their own teachers’ association dedicated to reducing child marriages among their students. The association has taken numerous initiatives to get the message out to sub-districts and villages, including by means of a roadshow. A similar association, Komunitas Langit Biru, has been set up by teens to promote the same ARH message. They have used social and mainstream media to promote the ARH campaign, creating innovative videos, posters and taking part in on-air discussions on local radio.
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8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The primary method of monitoring and evaluation in Bondowoso was to examine the statistics on marriages in the district throughout the period of the initiative to ascertain whether the number of child marriages in the district had declined. The Bondowoso Health Agency conducts an annual evaluation of the success of the ARH program – the Agency collects yearly data, and compares this data to the baseline data prepared by PKBI in 2011. The health agency is consequently able to examine whether there is a declining trend in child marriages. The agency then incorporates this information into their planning and budgeting.
The results of this evaluation are conclusive and show that the percentage of child marriages in the district has dropped by around 14% (or 7 percentage points) in the district in the two years since the program began.
With regard to monitoring the activities undertaken by specific stakeholders, the monitoring and evaluation was conducted by the institutions themselves, whether they were government agencies or NGOs. For example, health data relating to pregnancy rates and maternal and infant morbidity is collected from community health centers and passed to the health agency, and school drop-out rates are collected by schools and provided to the education agency. The overall findings are then jointly evaluated when multi-sectoral, multi-agency coordination meetings are held.
ARH monitoring activities are also carried out by informal community groups comprising of teens, teachers, religious figures, and community leaders. Given the informal nature of much of this community-based activity, it can be difficult to establish specific, identifiable targets by which its success or otherwise can be measured. However, it is clear from the significant reduction in child marriages in Bondowoso in the two years since the program began, that the communities have contributed greatly to making child marriage unacceptable.
In what is a uniquely innovative approach, community groups monitor local news and gossip to discover if a family is planning to marry off a teenage daughter. They will then inform the wives of local chiefs to act in their role as duta kespro. Using their influence as public figures, the duta kespro will approach the parents and urge them to delay the marriage and allow the girl to remain at school to complete her education.
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9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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This program worked to change the communities of Bondowoso’s perceptions of child marriage and ARH. The biggest challenge was the local culture, particularly with regard to the stigma attached to having an unmarried daughter older than 15.
The community considered child marriage to be the safest way to prevent pre-marital sex. Since talking about sexuality was taboo, parents rarely equipped their children with sufficient knowledge about reproductive health. Instead, parents preferred to simply have their daughters married off at an early age. Child marriage was also perceived as a way out of poverty; marrying off daughters at a young age meant reducing the number of family members to feed.
Changing cultural values always requires long-term effort by all parties to change the community’s deeply ingrained mindset. This was especially true in Bondowoso, given the low average level of educational attainment (average time spent at school: 5.94 years) and the relatively low level of economic development.
The challenge was met by the active participation of all sectors of the community working in conjunction with local and national government bodies and NGOs to promote ARH issues with the intention of reducing and eventually eliminating child marriage. This was done by means of educational and promotional activities aimed at teens, their parents and the wider community.
Religious and community leaders, including the district head’s wife and the wives of district, sub-district and village chiefs, worked alongside teachers and health workers to promote ARH education at school, through orientation sessions for new students and in the wider curriculum, and in the community at large by means of roadshows, training of trainers, sermons and awareness-raising for parents.
Most importantly, young people promoted ARH education as peer-to-peer educators and through their innovative use of social media, radio talkshows, and YouTube videos aimed at young people.
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