Stories

Sry Yuliana, a Posyandu Cadre Calling for Village Fund Allocation for Women

“Village fund should be optimized to answer the poverty problems, particularly for women” (Sry Yuliana)

Who are Posyandu (integrated health service post) cadres? Posyandu cadres are the women who help and take care of the pregnant women’s health, infants and children under five years old. They are helping pregnant mothers to do a health check, making sure the babies are weighed and immunized, listing family planning targets, helping the letter arrangement of poor women to receive free health care, etc.

Based on data, currently there are 7,510 Posyandu cadres in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara that spread over in 1,502 Posyandu. Each posyandu managed five cadres. They help residents to cope with public health issues intensively.

One of Posyandu cadre is Sry Yuliana, or Sry. She is also the member of Labuhan Haji Constituent Group.

One night, Sry got a call from a woman. At first, she tought that it was related to childbirth assistance request. But it was not. Sry got a call from Marsiah (not a real name), who experienced domestic violence. Marsiah was the family backbone. With three children and an unemployed husband, she worked as a washerwoman and rock breaker.

Her head was severely injured and all over her body was bruised. Sry asked Marsiah to came to health center to got treatment, but she refused. The next day, Sry asked Marsiah again and finally she agreed. The health officers immediately treated her. Marsiah got six stitches on her head.

This incident was not the first time. Marsiah often got violent treatments from her husband. She has been strangled, even chased with knives. Previously, her husband had been jailed for domestic violence cases, but finally paroled.

Later, Sry accompanied Marsiah to go to Women and Children Protection Unit, East Lombok Police Office to report the incident. Sry also accompanied her during the judicial process. Finally, Her husband was charged for 4 years in prison.

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The residents’ complaint to Posyandu Cadre were increased and varied each day, such as: violence against children and women, and also trafficking.

Due to limited public understanding about women and children protection, Sry thougt about how to inform the villagers about it. Sry remembered about socialisation of Law No. 6 in 2014 about Village, performed by BaKTI which supported by MAMPU Program. Women’s empowerment program can be fought for through the village fund budget. The budget amount from the central government to a village reached 700 million rupiah.

Then, Sry did a colaboration with village officials and Family Welfare Program (PKK) staff. Together with Labuhan Haji Constituent Group (KK), they began to joinMusrenbang (Multi-stakeholder consultation forum for development planning) on ​​a regular basis.

They proposed the need for socialisation about domestic violence, trafficking, and violence against children through the children and adolescent education. They also proposed an increasing incentives for Posyandu cadres.

To ensure proposed idea were outlined in the village planning and budgeting, Sry went to the village office to see the document of Labuhan Haji Village Regulation (Perdes) No. 2 of 2016 on the Budget Village (APBDes) Fiscal Year 2016.

Through the social development section, domestic violence and trafficking socialisation will be budgeted around 30 million rupiah. While for rural development implementation and rural health service activities are 37 million, and the expenditure for the cadre incentives provision 27 million rupiah.

As the KK Labuhan Haji Secretary, Sry encouraged more people to care about village fund budget in order to facilitate the advocacy for women in the future.

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Sry is an example of women who care about the village budget for the benefit of women’s rights. Commonly, budget discussion is always dominated by men. Many women’s issues and needs such as Posyandu, violence against women and children, maternal mortality and child mortality are not understood by men in the village.

As the Posyandu cadre and KK Labuhan Haji Secretary, Sry become a woman that is able to see important and strategic things to be planned and financed. This experience made Sry believes that caring for others makes everything is possible to strive for.

Reported and written by: Nur Janah and Lusia Palulungan