A Fresh Start for the Community-Led Initiatives
Written by Lorenzo Fellycyano. Originally posted by YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU) on 6th July 2023.
IDEAKSI — an acronym for Idea, Innovation, Action, and Inclusion — has concluded its first round of nurturing local innovations for disaster management in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It was launched in 2021 by YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU), as part of the Community-Led Innovation Partnership (CLIP) project. In its global partnership, programs like IDEAKSI were also initiated at the same time in other countries, like the Philippines and Guatemala.
Over the course of 20 months, IDEAKSI has supported 9 humanitarian response and disaster preparedness initiatives carried out by the selected innovators. These innovators, such as Sekoci with its emergency host family orientation initiative, received seed funding in September 2021.
During the development stage, IDEAKSI innovators strived to better prepare their communities to face disaster threats. Their innovations take form in both product and process innovations and serve in 18 communities in urban as well as rural settings.
Gunungkidul Disaster-Risk Reduction (DRR) Forum (FPRB GK), for instance, improved the accessibility of public facilities by utilizing the digital platform. Inputs from community members in the district of Gunungkidul have materialized in the form of facility improvements. At a local healthcare facility, a ramp was provided for the first time to accommodate the movement of persons with disability or persons with assistive devices. Also based on the inputs, the government repaired several access roads to support the safety and efficiency of the evacuation process.
Scaling up Positive Impacts
In the growth stage, 4 out of the initial 9 innovators received additional grants to expand or improve their innovations. The selected 4 innovators, CIQAL, DIFAGANA DIY, PB Palma, and Ngudi Mulya Farmers’ Group, each fine-tuned their innovative approaches to better serve the community.
CIQAL Foundation, for example, initially worked with Kepuharjo, a village less than 5 kilometers away from the summit of Merapi, which rapidly formed its volcanic crater. For its innovation scale-up in the growth stage, the village selected Wukirsari as its sister village to prepare the community, especially people with disabilities in Kepuharjo village in the evacuation when the next time Merapi erupts. Wukirsari would be ready to receive community members from Kepuharjo if Kepuharjo is declared an exclusion zone and too dangerous for people to stay during and after an eruption.
Several unexpected outcomes resulted from the growth stage. DIFAGANA DIY received national and international recognition for its accessible disaster-preparedness mobile app initiative, DIFGANDES.
Another scaled-up innovator, Ngudi Mulya, generated the interest of young people to work in agriculture. It responded by establishing a farming lab, which initially was not a part of its proposed innovation. The youth can now further explore their interest by growing and harvesting in a dedicated plot of land.
Expecting 15 New Innovators
In March 2023, the first IDEAKSI round concluded. Many questions arose about whether YEU would continue supporting such community initiatives in communities.
Gladly, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) was committed to continuing its funding support for the CLIP programs, including IDEAKSI. The CLIP partners through which YEU received the support, Elrha, Start Network, and Asia Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN), were also keen to see more community-led initiatives coming from IDEAKSI.
In May 2023, YEU began the second round of the program with various workshops to refresh the team’s knowledge of the processes involved in generating innovative ideas. Subsequently, it became the basis for our series of 7 roadshows in all 5 districts in the Special Region of Yogyakarta over the course of 2 weeks in May and June 2023.
Taking a different approach, YEU visited community groups in person during the roadshows. Thanks to the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, YEU could now promote the IDEAKSI call for concept notes right in the communities for richer conversations.
Previously in 2021 roadshows, YEU was able to meet and promote the first round of IDEAKSI almost exclusively online. It also became a barrier for some people, especially those living in rural areas with limited access to the internet and necessary devices.
Aside from introducing CLIP and what IDEAKSI is about, a team from YEU facilitated the invited groups in identifying disaster threats in their communities. Furthermore, they practiced how to use design thinking to come up with ideas and pick an innovation they want to propose for IDEAKSI.
YEU received 50 concept note submissions by the last week of June 2023. It expects to select 15 best community-led ideas from the submissions. The selection process is planned to be a joint effort between YEU and a panel of experts, including technical reviewers and community reviewers.
For its second project round, YEU as the Indonesia Innovation Hub is also partnering with Church World Service (CWS) Indonesia to nurture more innovations in new regions: East Nusa Tenggara, Central Sulawesi, and Jakarta. In partnership with CWS Indonesia, innovation support is expected to extend from 15 to 21 groups.
Through its refined approach to IDEAKSI for its second round, YEU wants to support more innovative ideas coming right from the community itself. As evidenced by good practices in the first round, innovations proposed and carried out by those who need them will more likely be sustainable.
With the accumulated local knowledge, YEU believes, the communities know which solution is the most suitable for their — disaster-related — problems. Therefore, YEU fosters community leadership in its innovation program, IDEAKSI.
The Community-Led Innovation Partnership is a joint initiative between Elrha, Start Network, Asia Disaster Reduction and Response Network, Asociación de Servicios Comunitarios de Salud in Guatemala, Center for Disaster Preparedness in the Philippines, and Yakkum Emergency Unit in Indonesia, which supports the emergence and development of locally-driven solutions to humanitarian problems. It is funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
