Ministry of Social Affairs Distributes 8,131 Aid Packages for Drug Abuse Victims and Abandoned Children

JAKARTA (26 August 2020) - The Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs through the Directorate General of Social Rehabilitation continues to provide assistance to fulfill basic needs for Social Welfare Service Recipient (PPKS). Assistance was given to 8,131 PPKS consisting of Drug Abuse Victims (KPN) and Abandoned Children in 8 provinces, namely DKI Jakarta, Banten, West Java, Central Java, DIY, East Java, North Sumatra and Lampung.

The Director General of Social Rehabilitation, Harry Hikmat, symbolically handed over 644 packages of assistance to fulfill basic needs at the Jakarta Plus Center Recipient Institution (IPWL) in the Kemayoran area. This package will then be distributed to KPN and abandoned children in the DKI Jakarta area.

The assistance package for KPN is different from the Abandoned Children assistance package. The aid package for KPN consists of rice, biscuits, cooking oil, instant noodles, sardines, sweetened condensed milk and liquid bath soap. Meanwhile, the aid package for neglected children consists of rice, chocolate milk, wafer biscuits, cereal and liquid bath soap.

"On this occasion, the Ministry of Social Affairs would like to thank you for the joint commitment that was built. We hope that in the future this constructive cooperation will become a priority. Because it is currently projected around 3.6 million KPN in Indonesia," said Harry.

The government under the leadership of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, instructed the Minister of Social Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Juliari P. Batubara, to carry out a social safety net during the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting from the provision of social assistance to ensuring that regular assistance is carried out more quickly.

The assistance that is currently being rolled out is the result of budget refocusing within the Directorate General of Social Rehabilitation. This budget refocusing is a government policy to divert unabsorbed budgets because they cannot be done during the Pandemic into basic needs assistance for PPKS affected by COVID-19.

"The Directorate General of Social Rehabilitation has carried out the task of optimizing the existing budget to be diverted so that it can ease the burden of spending on people affected by COVID-19," said Harry.

Assistance is rolled out through IPWL because IPWL is one of the institutions that helps the Ministry of Social Affairs to reach and respond to KPN, monitoring so that KPN does not recur. Now as many as 189 IPWL spread throughout Indonesia who have been given a Decree as a partner of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Harry said that in the near future there will be a reconstruction so that IPWL's existence is not limited to receiving mandatory reports from KPNs, but also strengthens aspects of social rehabilitation, one of which is community-based social rehabilitation.

In line with that, the Ministry of Social Affairs through the Directorate General of Social Rehabilitation is carrying out a transformation in the implementation of social rehabilitation which initially emphasized institution-based services to family and community-based services.

In the implementation of this social rehabilitation, the Ministry of Social Affairs has collaborated with institutions related to the handling of KPN, one of which is the National Narcotics Agency (BNN). This cooperation is included in the standardization of the implementation of social rehabilitation and is strengthened by the national standard social rehabilitation instruments issued by the National Narcotics Agency.

The Ministry of Social Affairs will be present by explaining the formation of social rehabilitation which further strengthens the role of families and communities as well as LKS. "This is where the importance of the presence of IPWL as a partner of the Ministry of Social Affairs who will further participate in providing wider social rehabilitation interventions," said Harry.

The distribution of assistance to meet basic needs was attended by the Acting Director of Social Rehabilitation for Drug Abuse Victims and their staff, employees of the DKI Jakarta Provincial Social Service, Head of Kebon Kosong sub-district and IPWL administrators and LKSA recipients of assistance.