From October 3-4, 2007, I had the opportunity to co-facilitate a strategic planning workshop of an organization called Yakita in Ciawi, Bogor, Indonesia. Bogor is a city 45-minute drive just outside Jakarta. Yakita is one of our organization's partners. Its main mission is to address drug addiction and co-related issues such as HIV, Hepatitis C, crime, violence and reproductive health. It operates rehabilitation centers and several community-based capacity development and empowerment projects in about nine provinces. The workshop was the first for the organization as a group to discuss its future direction. Participants involved were staff members coming from different project sites such as Aceh, Kupang, Makassar, Bogor, Surabaya, Bandung and Bali.
Yakita's staff members are mainly former drug addicts. Surprisingly, these kids (as Yakita's founders Joyce and David Gordon call them), are brilliant and fun to be with. They actively participated in session discussions and were not intimidated to speak their minds. As I was discussing with my colleague, Mary, we have accomplished much working with these junkies (they call themselves such), than with the Ph.D's and professors of a leading university. Our Ph. D friends appeared to have big egos and vested self-interests that they view their organization as a vehicle for their personal aggrandizement instead of using it as a platform to contribute to societal development.
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