Deaf Indonesian mental health group 2023

​​I will go back to Indonesia in May and June 2023 to follow up with the same Deaf Indonesian group from last year. In July I will go to the World Federation of Deaf Congress 2023 at Jeju Island, South Korea. It will be the first time that two Deaf Indonesian Davi and Artha will talk about their experience in Indonesia.

From May to August 2022, I volunteered to work at 24 different places in Indonesia for Deaf mental health workshops for 4 months with Gerkatin's team. We had 32 workshops and 523 Deaf people attended the workshops in the last 4 months. Now I'm sad to see Laura, Davi from Jakarta and Filemon from Makassar. They have worked tirelessly with me from May to August 2022.

We have been travelling together and staying at hotels. We ate, worked, planned our schedules, and moved from one place to another. Our emotions went up and down and shared different views. We learnt a lot from each other and through so many different places, communities, cultures, attitudes, behaviours and languages. It was very tough and challenging every day. It can happen anytime to change the situation due to covid issues, health reasons, a plan change at the last minute, and the effect through political reasons or social media. We were trying to keep going on with work, supporting and caring for each other throughout this struggling time. It was fortunate that our team was able to share our moods, emotions and pressures.​​ ​

The Deaf people were sensitive, it was hard for them to understand what mental health meant. They never had before learned like this. They are so used to such as putting up with the abuses from other people in their culture. They thought it was a normal way to be treated. They accept it and try to get on with their lives. They thought they must keep quiet and not complain as normal every day while they are abusing, oppressing and discriminating! With the workshops, they began to understand what it meant to mental health for them and what they can do to change this. We learned a lot from Deaf people with their true stories from natural disasters, especially Aceh, Padang, Yogyakarta, Palu and East Java. I made a short film and some photos of what they had been through the experiences​. ​​ Please see the film; https://www.remark.uk.com/indonesia

Please donate this GoFundMe will directly pay for a Deaf Indonesian Relay interpreter and Deaf Indonesian volunteer to support this series of workshops. I hope to raise £3000.

I will greatly appreciate your support for this project. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Warm regards,

Herbert Klein,

London, UK