2024 was a challenging but meaningful year for Empatika. While our projects and activities covered a variety of topics, spanning from social welfare, education, health, environment, and music, and included research as well as training activities, there were some prominent themes and common threads across these activities. These included the themes of empowerment, engagement, and inclusion, which were important not only to the goals of many of our projects in 2024, but were also ever present in many of these project’s key findings.

As we keep on growing and expanding the utility of participatory and people-centred approaches, in 2024 we introduced a training program that is fully open to the public. Our first course is tailored for researchers, program officers, and anyone interested in learning about the fundamentals of participatory practices for better engagement and research.
2024 research projects: empowerment, engagement, and inclusion
We kicked off 2024 by wrapping up a collaboration with UNDP Accelerator Lab Indonesia, facilitating a sensemaking workshop in January with government and other stakeholders about our study which focused on the lives of informal street workers in Jakarta. In this workshop, we shared insights from the study and brainstormed ways to improve the welfare of street workers. A key emphasis for this workshop, and the project more generally, was that in order to be able to empower street workers and other marginalized communities, we need to be providing support that is relevant for them, that makes sense for their daily lives and is easy for them to use and access.Â
An important part of providing relevant support is using empathetic ways of engagement. Using informal and casual methods, taking the time to be on the street and alongside people, and including those who may be less visible or vocal are not only especially appropriate when working with marginalized groups, they also lead to more effective and relevant insights. We are hopeful that using these strategies and providing relevant, empathetic support can help to not only improve the well-being of communities like these, but also contribute to a more inclusive society more generally
This study also highlighted two common insights across much of our work this year: the impact of stigma as well as a lack of supportive or relevant information. The stigma street workers face, for example, results in their isolation from the wider community and local officials, making it more difficult for them to receive available public support.
One of our next projects focused on understanding parents and caregivers challenges in supporting children with disabilities (CwD). For this study, we explored engagement from the perspective of CwD parents, and found that many parents’ engagement with their child is limited by a lack of support. This lack of support includes the stigma and discrimination that parents face in their communities and society more generally, which not only discourages many parents, but it also makes it more difficult to seek and find help. Also similar to the situation faced by street workers, parents of CwD lack information about where they can go to get help and how to effectively support their children. This includes information on inclusive schools, although as we found sometimes these schools also lack capacity and support. When parents are not supported with good information and resources, and face the ecosystem inequities we also found, progress with their child often relies heavily on parents' own skills and initiative.
Empowering parents needs to start by helping them better understand their child’s condition and their developmental stages. Building on these findings and as part of empowering parents, we are currently developing parental guidance and an educational program for parents and caregivers to help provide them with better understanding on how to navigate their caregiving challenges effectively. In addition to the improvements needed with the support ecosystem, we hope that our efforts in the second phase can be an important step in supporting CwDs.

As we approached the end of 2024, one of our new projects focused on adolescent health. We partnered with JSI and CHAI as part of an initiative to help make the HPV vaccination program in Indonesia more inclusive. Currently, the HPV program is centered around schools and thus potentially leaves out those who have dropped out of school or are attending less formal types of education institutions, such as pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) or Pusat Kegiatan Belajar Masyarakat (community learning centers). Our study focused on understanding girls and their caregivers’ experiences in accessing the HPV vaccine, and included both in-school and out of school girls between the ages of 11 to 17, as well as their caregivers. We used a human-centered design approach as part of also involving the study participants directly in the process of developing potential solutions to the barriers and issues that they face.Â
One of the more interesting findings for those girls who have been vaccinated was how many of them felt that the health workers, and sometimes teachers as well, were often rushed or even unfriendly during the vaccination process. This lack of empathetic communication left many girls feeling anxious before they received the jab, and in some cases also not feeling well afterwards. Meanwhile, parents of both in-school and out of school girls felt that there was a lack of information, either about vaccine details like managing potential side effects, or about how to access the vaccine outside of school. During solutions development, many of the participant groups’ ideas emphasized their need for better methods of engagement and information sharing for the HPV vaccination program. Now in 2025, we will be sharing the study insights as well as the solutions developed by girls and their caregivers to vaccine program stakeholders to be further discussed and refined for potential implementation.
What else in 2024?

Other exciting developments in 2024 included wrapping up a study on volunteering practices in collaboration with Indorelawan and our second private sector project to focus on online music services. Then, we also obtained our third study in as many years to focus on environmental issues – this one an inclusive needs assessment and stakeholder engagement plan as part of a project with C40 and Vital Strategies for developing an integrated low emission zone in Jakarta, which aims to address urban air pollution while promoting social and economic equity and inclusion. We will be conducting the fieldwork for this study in the first part of 2025.
Finally, in April we introduced our 1-Day Training on Participatory Practices for Better Engagement and Research, which intends to build the participants’ skills in engaging with communities and others, both for research and other programs, as well as introduce participants to various participatory visual tools. Our hope is that training such as this will help promote and support more inclusive and people-centered policies, programs, and research where community members are directly involved in these processes.
Welcoming 2025
With many works surrounding the topics of empowerment, engagement, and inclusivity, it has been a reminder and motivator for us in continuing to find more ways that we can support these values through our work. This includes our training, where we are currently working on developing an intermediate and advanced version of our one-day Participatory Practices training. We are also expanding the modalities (such as an online version of our Participatory Practices for Better Engagement and Research training) and training sites (more in Bali, and potentially Bandung or other cities).Â

Regarding our ongoing and upcoming research projects, in addition to the inclusive needs assessment and stakeholder engagement plan for an integrated low emission zone in Jakarta, we are currently working on the caregiver and facilitator guidelines for the second phase of our project related to supporting parents and caregivers of CwD, as well as planning the stakeholder workshop for our HPV vaccination study.
Welcoming 2025, we are excited to expand opportunities to our training, empowering more people with skills, strategies, and sensitivities for better engagement and research practices. We also look forward to continuing our ongoing work and embracing the opportunity to meet new people and explore new projects in new areas.
Comentários