By Writer Astari Pinasthika Sarosa

05 January 2023 - 12:14

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Active in the Movement for the Well-Being of Deaf Indonesians (GERKATIN) Makassar since 2015, Selfiana Saenal feels that the digital world in Indonesia is not inclusive enough for persons living with disabilities (PLWD). Selfi then joined the Skills for Inclusive Digital Participation (SIDP) programme with the British Council as a Community Level Trainer (CLT).

Funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the programme aims to improve the digital capabilities of individuals from marginalized communities, including youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, women, and PLWD.

With her sign language skills, Selfi helped facilitate three training groups with deaf participants. The groups in basic 1 and basic 2 had a total of 47 participants, and the intermediate group had 21 participants.

“I am happy to be involved in this activity and hope there will be other programmes like this in the future. Especially for friends with disabilities, there is not much training like this. Often they are limited in the city due to lack of access, even though other areas need this kind of training,” said the Makassar woman.

According to Selfi, we must continue to support and develop the SIDP programme. First, we must adjust the module again for deaf people. There are still many deaf participants who find it difficult to process long sentences. Therefore, the module must be made even simpler, and we need more images to support the training.

"As for the implementation itself, I think it is already good, but the module needs to be revised. In addition, I think the programme is not long enough for our deaf friends to understand better and practice it immediately,” continued Selfi.

As an Expert Level Trainer (ELT) for South Sulawesi, Dwi Alfia Rizkiyani agreed to Selfi's suggestion. Dwi helped design the SIDP modules with other ELTs from Indonesia, Nigeria, and Kenya, with assistance from the British Council. From January to October 2021, Dwi discusses with other ELTs every other week. Then, Dwi trained 33 CLTs from various regions in South Sulawesi, including Makassar, Gowa, Bone, and Maros, for this programme.

One of Dwi's biggest lessons is that there is still a lack of understanding about inclusiveness. “When I went into the field, it turned out that there were things that I initially thought impossible turned out to be true. For example, with email, many still do not understand how to use it. So, we have to see and explore this programme without any assumptions,” said Dwi.

In addition, there are still many assumptions regarding digital education for PLWD. Dwi continued: “There is still a lack of understanding about creating an inclusive digital world. For example, participants who are deaf need more pictures because it is difficult to compose sentences. And then many blind friends don't know about audiobooks." Therefore, it is very important to get suggestions from the community directly.

However, it is undeniable that SIDP has helped many marginalized communities. Primarily to ensure that the internet can be a safe and open forum for all. Dwi sees that many local people already have technological equipment and access to the internet but could not get good education on it.

“I see in the training many mothers and young people have good cell phones. Unfortunately, they are easily exposed to hoaxes and often become targets for fraud or scams," said Dwi. With SIDP, participants learn about cybersecurity and how to use the internet wisely.

Dwi hopes that with this programme, she can help marginalized communities to develop their businesses, find work, and become wise content creators. In addition to providing education, SIDP is also a broad community to build a more inclusive digital world.

"Although it's not 100 percent yet, at least we've done something to improve the digital skills in Indonesia," explained Dwi.
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