GAYa NUSANTARA provides services to gay men (and to a lesser extent to waria and lesbians), such as sexual health education, counselling (through a telephone hotline), a monthly magazine (circulation 500-800 copies) and correspondence by e-mail and letters. It also carries out mass media advocacy by making activists available for coverage of activities. The NGO also builds alliances with pro-democracy, human rights and feminist organisations. Communicating through the media has made it possible for a small organisation like GAYa to educate society at large about gay sexual health issues.
GAYa's work within Indonesia's gay movement has been challenging. From 1993-99 government programmes marginalised GAYa due to strong heterosexism and homophobia in government circles. But the situation has been slowly improving. Recently, after a long hiatus in which male sexual health programmes did not have priority, GAYa has been invited to work as a partner within the Aksi Stop AIDS (ASA) Indonesia programme, sponsored by Family Health International and the Indonesian Department of Health and Social Welfare. GAYa will start with a sexual health clinic, which will also provide psychosocial counselling and community development activities, including work around human rights and legal education. Attention will also be given to a political agenda that focuses on issues such as legal reform and work within trade unions. GAYa's hard-fought results in the fight for gay human and sexual rights encourage us to continue to play a leadership role in this field.
Dédé Oetomo, Coordinator GAYa NUSANTARA; Jalan Mulyosari Timur 46, Surabaya 60112, Indonesia; Tel: +62-31-593.49.24; Fax: +62-31-599.35.69; e-mail: gayanusa@ilga.org; web: http://welcome.to/gay
source: http://www.kit.nl/exchange/html/2001-3-claiming_gay_persons.asp
