OBJECTIVES

Lentera’s gay youth outreach work aims to provide education, support and services, such that youth can lead healthier lives, and help to prevent HIV/AIDS and other reproductive health problems.

BACKGROUND

Lentera is a program of the Indonesia Planned Parenthood Association. The project was founded in 1993 by a group of young people, concerned about the sexual health of their peers. The street outreach work in the gay community was the first project implemented by Lentera.

SCOPE

The project’s work is focused in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Gay youth are reached in the “cruising areas” where they hang out at night.

MAIN ACTIVITIES

Education and Support Services:

• Street outreach is provided several nights per week, sharing education, support and referrals to necessary health services.
• Special events are carried out periodically, such as monthly support-group meetings and weekend retreats.
• A pamphlet series has been developed which discusses relevant issues such as correct condom use, relationships, and STIs. These are distributed during outreach meetings.

Condom Distribution:
Condoms are available for distribution by street outreach workers. Innovative ways to make condoms more accessible have also been implemented.

Health Services:
Health service referrals are provided by outreach workers, and Planned Parenthood also provides a special STI clinic one night per week to gay youth.

MANAGEMENT FEATURES

Strategy

Every attempt is made to make this project’s work as relevant to the target community’s needs as possible. The community is regularly interviewed, regarding the project work, and members of the community are encouraged to become volunteers.

Capacity-Building

Outreach workers are very well-trained and supported in their work: they receive a three-day training and then must work with a senior outreach worker for one month before working alone.

Youth leadership is developed by giving responsibility for many programs to youth volunteers, such as the support groups, etc.

Mobilising Resources

Support from the gay community has been developed by involving them in Lentera’s work: Gay youth are encouraged to become volunteers for the project, and at least one Lentera staff member is gay.

Managerial Leadership

This project is unique in that few ASRH programs are successfully targeting gay youth,
and the on-going evaluation data is used to continually develop more recipient-friendly services. The lessons learned from this project will prove useful for similar programs.

EVALUATION FINDING

On-going project evaluation is conducted, to continually refine the project to suit the community’s needs. Outreach workers are required to write short reports each time they go into the field, and a staff member obtains monthly feedback from the field, regarding the outreach team’s work. Impact evaluation data was not available for this case study.