USAID IUWASH PLUS recognizes that media plays important role in conveying information about water supply and sanitation in precise and accurate manner. Media could contribute to educating the public and will lead to the behavior change in the community. With that regard, USAID IUWASH PLUS worked with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to conduct a Media Visit to Kelurahan Pekojan in Jakarta on March 15, 2017. This activity is the part of 3rd Rakornas STBM 2017 activities. This Media Visit event is aimed at increasing media engagement in WASH sector and raise media awareness that issues in sanitation sector cannot be separated from water supply issue.
Nineteen journalists from 17 media participated in this event by visiting Kelurahan Pekojan. Pekojan is the example of kelurahan that has implemented the 5 pillars of STBM and Open Defecation Free (ODF). On this occasion, the journalists were provided with the explanation related to the sanitation issues from the Director for Environmental Health of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Imran Agus Nurali and continued with the presentation on the implementation of STBM in Kelurahan Pekojan by Tri Prasetyo Utomo, Lurah Pekojan. After attending the briefing, the journalists had an opportunity to visit and cover the activities in Pekojan that represented the implementation of STBM. Those activities included Waste Bank visit, introduction to the use of ceramic filter for supporting household water supply management and observing scheduled desludging service (L2T2) activities carried out by PD PAL Jaya in several houses in Kelurahan Pekojan.
Through this visit, media can observe some activities as part of the STBM activities in the field. During the news coverage in the field, the journalists were accompanied by experts who are competent in the sanitation sector that expected can contribute to the knowledge enrichment in WASH sector. “This visit is very useful, especially in facilitating the media to cover issues in WASH sector, which is not yet widely known by the public,” said Aditya Ramadhani, journalist from Antara.
As part of the 3rd Rakornas STBM and the continuation of previous Media Visit in Pekojan, USAID IUWASH PLUS worked with the Ministry of Health held a media discussion that was also served as the press conference for the Rakornas STBM 2017. The media discussion/press conference was held in the Mahar Mardjono Room of Ministry of Health on March 17, 2017.
This discussion was attended by around 30 journalists from 20 media and provided presentations on several topics related to the implementation of STBM, the Universal Access targets and the Sustainable Development Goals for water and sanitation presented by the resource speakers from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Ministry of Home Affairs and USAID IUWASH PLUS.
For the final activity, to increase media engagement in STBM, a discussion session on the collaboration and lesson learned to implement STBM by stakeholders was held in Rakornas STBM event on March 21-22, 2017. The discussion session was held on March 22 and the speakers were from Jaringan Jurnalis Peduli Sanitasi Makassar (Care for Sanitation Journalists Network), Jakarta Post, PT ADARO, Indonesian National Armed Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia) and PD PAL Jaya.
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