We cannot underestimate the power of SALT

[Lawan Vejapikul]

It is more than 1 year already after my second visit to people from Pontianak and Singkawang during the AIDS Competence workshop. Before flying to Indonesia, we had some discussion on email with some people from the local team members there about “What’s going on?” and “What should we focus this time?” What we got from the discussion seem to make us worry about the process this time because we plan to introduce some new tools and the build some knowledge assets together. The feedback from the local team in each city was not so well, not much progress has been reported. During that time we were not sure whether we will be able to build up the knowledge assets or not with the less experiences but we were still believe in “human capacity” and “community’s strength”. So, we’ve just let it go as the planned agenda.

The first day, we gave the space for the participants to share their experiences on “What went well?” and this was the moment when we realized that a lot of progresses happen in these 2 cities (Pontianak and Singkawang). A lot of energies had been floating in the air and covering all over the meeting room. The spirits were even more powerful. At the end of the day, we were all very exhausted after trying to catch up all of the energies and spirits. We ended our long day with the AAR among the facilitation team. Novi said about her best lesson learn of that day which was really hit me; she said “we cannot under estimate the power of SALT and how it stimulates the enthusiasm of the people who has been experienced it”.

This is the most important thing to prove that everything needs to be started from our own self. The belief is also the same. “If you want people to believe in your capacity, you also have to believe in their capacity because we are all the same human being”.

Note: More details and more stories from this event, you can find in this report
20081113 AIDS COMPETENCE IN INDONESIA FINAL.pdf