The pandemic has changed many aspects of our lives. Some people might still be dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, and some may be having difficulty adapting to a new lifestyle. A global pandemic can affect the body physically and also mentally. Judging from the data on mental health in Indonesia, sufferers of depression have increased by 35% from 2018 (Widati & Nordin, 2022) and data shared by the Association of Indonesian Psychiatry states 69% of the 2364 respondents experienced psychological problems during the pandemic (Fatahya & Abidin, 2022). This increase in mental illness is a problem because just like physical illness, mental illness can hinder daily activity.

Mental illness affects social interactions, reduces performance and productivity, causes problems in dietary habits, and can even lead to physical illness (Rozali, Sitasari & Lenggogeni, 2021). Awareness about mental health has increased via social media during the pandemic. This is a good thing considering mental health awareness can encourage people suffering from poor mental health to seek professional help. Social media can also facilitate social interaction, give access to information on social support programs, help share experiences and learn about other people’s experiences (Fatahya & Abidin, 2022). The use of social media to spread information about mental health might be an effective method considering 170 million Indonesians of a total population of 275 million are active users of social media (Fatahya & Abidin, 2022).

Given this background of growing awareness of mental health online, we thought it would be timely to interview social media platforms that are helping spread useful information about mental health. Pertemanan Sejiwa responded to our request and agreed to participate in an interview. Pertemanan Sejiwa, or Soul Friendship in English, was founded as an online platform in January 2021. At first, Pertemanan Sejiwa was just an idea submitted for a national competition. The idea was to build an online platform that aims to help with mental disorders and nutritional problems in Indonesia. Pertemanan Sejiwa serves to address concerns about the treatment available at public health facilities as well as the negative stigma about mental disorders.

Based on keluarga sehat (healthy family) data from February 2020, only 36.75% of families with severe mental disorders are receiving treatment. This data was obtained from 44.4 million households, which makes up 51.9% of the total population (Primadi et al., 2019). Eight provinces in Indonesia do not have mental hospitals and access to mental health professionals is limited with uneven distribution across the country (Ditjen P3, 2018).

Furthermore, 5218 people suffering with mental illness are simply being shackled and not treated for their condition at all, according to data from the Indonesian Ministry of Health in 2019 (Primadi et al., 2019). Pertemanan Sejiwa wants to help people by spreading information about mental health and nutrition in order to educate people and reduce the negative stigma surrounding mental illness. The focus is on providing useful information especially to the younger generation.

Pertemanan Sejiwa has five parts to its mission statement:

  • Create an online platform to share information and consultation on mental health and nutrition on a national and international scale
  • Improve the quality, structure and content for followers of Pertemanan Sejiwa
  • Explore, develop and apply scientific values to the fields of psychology and nutrition
  • Spread information through media and hold online consultations
  • Educate the public about nutritional and mental health in order to create an Indonesia made up of people that are physically and mentally healthy

The hope is to create a society that is educated in mental and nutritional issues so people can help each other with their problems. Pertemanan Sejiwa operates across social media platforms such as Twitter, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Youtube and Tiktok. We interviewed Ubaid Kurniawan (Iwan), the founder and CEO of Pertemanan Sejiwa.

Interview

Interviewees
Mr. Ubaid Kurniawan (Iwan) – Founder of Pertemanan Sejiwa

Q: First of all, could you please introduce yourself?

Iwan: Hello my name is Iwan, I am the founder and CEO of Pertemanan Sejiwa. Currently I am a full-time undergraduate student majoring in Psychology from Trunojoyo University in Madura, Indonesia.

Q: Could you please briefly describe Pertemanan Sejiwa?

Iwan: Pertemanan Sejiwa is basically a non-profit organization that focuses on mental health education and nutrition. At that time, I noticed that there were no organizations in my city focusing on these issues, so that is why I along with a couple of close friends founded Pertemanan Sejiwa.

Interview with Ubaid Kurniawan (Iwan), founder of Pertemanan Sejiwa

Q: How long have you been involved in Pertemanan Sejiwa?

Iwan: As the founder, I have been actively involved in Pertemanan Sejiwa since it was established in January 2021.

Q: What do you do on a daily basis?

Iwan: Pertemanan Sejiwa has nine divisions which work on different tasks, such as our Support Group Division which focuses on sharing sessions, our Event Division which plans the events held by our organization, our UI/UX Division which works on website development (coming soon), etc. As the leader of the organization, my job is basically to check all of our daily activities and make sure that everything is running well.

Q: What is the background story to founding this non-profit organization?

Iwan: I was concerned about public health facilities in terms of mental health in Indonesia. I knew that not all of the public health facilities can provide enough professionals to handle patients with mental disorders. There is still a negative stigma about asking for help from professionals. People tend to keep all of their problems to themselves and this can lead to serious problems in the future. So it is important to educate people about the importance of mental health. Pertemanan Sejiwa can provide the information needed and we hope that negative stigma about mental disorders can be reduced and eventually eliminated.

Q: What events has Pertemanan Sejiwa held?

Iwan: For 18 months we only conducted online events because of the pandemic. During that period we held some web seminars and one of them, which mainly talked about self-love, reached 5000 participants. Participants vary from students to regular citizens. We were also happy to see participants from other countries, like Malaysia and Timor Leste.

Webinars on Mental Health (left) and Nutrition (right)

Q: Pertemanan Sejiwa is an organization that educates people in terms of mental health and nutrition. What has Pertemanan Sejiwa done in some specific cases?

Iwan: Basically for the past 18 months, we have held the same activities for both mental health and nutrition, such as counseling, webinars, volunteer work, etc. but the topics were different for each session. For example, for mental health education, we held web seminars about self love, PTSD, OCD, and depression, while for nutrition, we looked at stunted development and malnutrition.

Q: What happens when someone contacts you to consult about their problems?

Iwan: There have been plenty of instances. Our Support Group conducts online sharing sessions. We have supported victims of cyberbullying, sexual harrasement, etc. As most of us have not graduated yet, our job is only to assure them they are not alone, give them advice, and tell them that it is okay to ask for professional help. I always remind my staff that we are not allowed to give any form of diagnosis or violate our ethical code.

Q: How many members does Pertemanan Sejiwa have? Are all of them volunteers?

Iwan: All core members and staff are volunteers. To date, we have 100 volunteers that work across nine different divisions. For the selection process, we did open recruitment followed by interviews.

Q: Who can become a volunteer?

Iwan: They should be an undergraduate or graduate student. For some cases, we also accept professionals or people who have just graduated. We do not have specific majors that we prefer, but those who want to join support groups or research divisions should have a background in psychology or nutrition.

Q: What are the criteria for those who want to be a part of Pertemanan Sejiwa?

Iwan: During the selection process, usually we looked at their commitment and enthusiasm. If they had experience related to the division they wanted to join that was great. But Pertemanan Sejiwa is a space for an individual to try something new in order to enhance their own experiences.

Q: What has been the most rewarding and challenging thing you have had to deal with?

Iwan: Helping people and giving the right information about mental health is rewarding in itself. One of the best moments was when we held a webinar about self-love and there were so many people attending who were really enthusiastic.
That said, being founder and CEO of Pertemanan Sejiwa is such a big responsibility. I have to handle many things at once to keep moving the organization forward.

Q: What is your hope for the future?

Iwan: In the short term, we will continue to disseminate information about mental health and nutrition through webinars. On October 10, 2022, timed to coincide with World Mental Health Day, we would like to conduct a webinar along with some other events.
Looking to the future, I hope that we can build an offline community, eventually making this organization into a foundation for those who have mental illness (ODGJ – Orang Dengan Gangguan Jiwa, or the stigmatization of people with mental illness). We plan to collaborate with the local government and investors to help us make these dreams come true.

Reflections

Being able to interview Iwan and hearing him talk about his organization was an eye-opening experience.

Health is essential for human beings to be able to do their activities well. When we talk about health, it is not only about physical health, food we consume, or exercise that we do. Health is a broad concept encompassing both physical and mental health.

Mental health is a serious problem in Indonesia, with a lot of stigma attached to any form of mental illness in society. As a result, many young people in Indonesia suffer from anxiety, depression, and many more mental illnesses because they tend to keep their problems to themselves.

Pertemanan Sejiwa, along with other organizations that focus on mental health in Indonesia, are trying to solve these problems by providing better information about these issues.

One piece of good news is that the government is trying to provide free services for mental health consultation via public health in local communities. Hopefully this will help reduce the number of people suffering from mental illness in Indonesia.

Changing long-held perspectives is not an easy challenge to meet. Despite all of these difficulties, organizations like Pertemanan Sejiwa are proving that it is not impossible to influence others in a positive manner as well as spreading awareness about mental health.

We are inspired to be more sensitive about issues around us. We believe that, if the younger generation is willing to contribute to society, Indonesia will become a better nation in the future.

References

Ditjen P3. (2018). RENCANA AKSI KEGIATAN (RAK) 2015 – 2019. Jakarta.

Fatahya, & Abidin, F. A. (2022). Literasi Kesehatan Mental dan Status Kesehatan Mental Dewasa Awal Pengguna Media Sosial. Higeia Journal of Public Health Research and Development, 1(3), 625–634.

Primadi, O., Budijanto, D., Indrayani Aryantin, Y., Wardah, Susanti Indah, M., Pangribowo, S. Maula, R. (2019). Profil Kesehatan Indonesia tahun 2019. In B. Hardhana, F. Sibuea, & W. Widiantini (Eds.), Kementrian Kesehatan Republik Indonesia. Jakarta: Kementerian Kesehatan Republik Indonesia. https://doi.org/10.5005/jp/books/11257_5

Rozali, Y. A., Sitasari, N. W., & Lenggogeni, A. (2021). Meningkatkan Kesehatan Mental Di Masa Pandemic. Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat AbdiMas, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.47007/abd.v7i2.3958

Widati S, Siddiq Amer Nordin A. Mental Health During COVID-19: An Overview in Online Mass Media Indonesia. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health. 2022;34(2-3):300-301. doi:10.1177/10105395211063169

Researchers

My name is Precella Silvia and I live in Surabaya. I’m a senior at the University of Surabaya majoring in Biotechnology. As part of my studies, I have researched Bioinformatics, Drug Development, and Molecular Biology. I am also an activist and serve as President of the Student’s Representative Board. My passion for teaching has driven me to be a private tutor. Currently, I teach mathematics, physics and chemistry to middle and high schoolers. I also love music, having played piano since I was in second grade. Over the last 3 years, I learned how to make digital art and it led me to set up my own online business. My dream is to pursue a master’s degree overseas and research medical science to improve the quality of life in Indonesia.

Hello everyone, my name is Jovanka Rya Ivana. I have lived in Malang for the last 18 years and am currently living in Surabaya for college. I’m majoring in psychology at the University of Surabaya, and this year I will be in my third year. I have liked drawing since I was a child, and that hobby led me to get involved in many events in college. I’m really hoping I can develop my drawing and design skills further and try to work as a freelancer. I’m interested in psychology but I’m actually still undecided about what I want to be or what specifically in the field of psychology I wish to focus on.