Foreword
 

Dear friends in Asia and the Pacific, and across the world,

The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting us all. As the Regional Bureau for Sciences in the Asia and the Pacific, UNESCO Jakarta has shifted our activities to online platforms and continued to implement our programmes and activities.   

During the extended transition period from the large-scale social restrictions in Jakarta, our office shared the national education policies and strategies adopted or newly developed for the country’s immediate actions in order to explore strategic ways to address challenges amidst and post-situation of COVID-19 for continuity of learning for all in our region. We successfully launched the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2020 with His Excellency the Minister of Education and Culture Indonesia. We also introduced the teacher’s guidebook for learning for empathy in Indonesia. In the Philippines, we organized an online session targeting the ALS learners.

We have organized interactive interview sessions with implementing partners to learn from their knowledge, experience, and view of the post-pandemic new normal.

We also organized several regional consultations on Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation, Open Science and Water, Energy, and Food Sustainability for Post COVID-19. This has helped develop collective understanding on how science can play an important role in responding to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 and build back the better of the South-South Cooperation through sustainable perspectives.

On disaster risk reduction during COVID-19, our office organized a webinar to discuss how science communication and disaster communication can contribute to the safety measures during the reopening of schools after the disasters caused by natural hazards. Our office developed a toolkit for Youth and Young Professionals’ Platform and a risk communication video for social awareness on COVID-19.  We also supported the socialization of the guide for tsunami evacuation during COVID-19.

UNESCO Jakarta conducted a webinar on protecting the rights of persons with disabilities in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar served as a platform to discuss national and local policies enacted in the context of COVID-19 that have a significant impact on persons with disabilities and on their rights.

In this issue, we also would like to share our activities on safety for journalists and on virtual trainings for young cultural entrepreneur. We are delighted to share more news and publications in this second edition of 2020 newsletter.

#StaySafe
 
Shahbaz Khan

Director and Representative

 

E-Introduction Training on Learning for Empathy

 

The webinar on 9 June 2020 aimed at introducing the teacher’s guidebook for learning for empathy in Indonesia, Buku Panduan Guru: Belajar Empati.  The webinar included a sharing session by the teachers of the pilot schools on the good practices on Learning for Empathy and lesson learned from the teachers visit to Japan. The main session of the webinar was to introduce the Guidebook and explained how learning for empathy can be integrated to school subjects with samples from the stories presented in the Guidebook. 
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Feeling Good: Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for ALS Learners during COVID-19 Pandemic

 

The mental health and psychosocial support online session was aimed at encouraging ALS learners to cope better and remain productive in their daily routine during the COVID-19 emergency crisis. Key topics were delivered as activity-based inputs such as normalizing situations (fears, concerns, and issues); maintaining well-being (circle of control, finding solutions, and short breathing exercise); and managing stress (noticing our feelings, identifying hooking and unhooking thoughts, setting up own routines, and short breathing exercises).
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COVID-19 Education Response Policy Webinar Education Policy for Continuity of Learning through Alternative Delivery Modalities

 

The webinar on 6 June 2020 aimed to share the national education policies and strategies adopted or newly developed for the country’s immediate actions in order to explore strategic ways to address challenges amidst and post-situation of COVID-19 for continuity of learning for all. The speakers had the opportunity to share the strategies in their countries, including the issuance of adopted or newly developed national policies, guidance, acts, regulations, to enable the students to continue their learning due to school closure, the challenges of its implementation, and ways to address them.
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Water Food and Energy Sustainability Nexus

The Regional Consultation Meeting on Water, Energy, and Food Sustainability (WEFS) for Post COVID-19 webinar, organized on 13 August 2020, featured the prominent speakers from various institutions in Pakistan, South Korea, Australia, Portugal and Malaysia. The meeting aimed to develop the collective understanding of the interdependent relations of the water, energy, and food in responding to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 and build back the better of the South-South Cooperation through sustainable perspectives.

The first online gathering on 28 July 2020 enabled an exchange of news and views from contributors to UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) across the region.
The agenda was focused on the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact in different parts of the region – from the Small Island Developing States of the Pacific to the mountain countries of Central Asia.  The meeting featured technical presentations by key water experts from Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan and the Republic of Korea. Each speaker shared ideas based on their experience of how the water science community has contributed to addressing the challenges brought by the pandemic – and how that experience could be put to use elsewhere in the region. The discussion in this way helped set the agenda of this year’s IHP Regional Steering Committee for Asia and the Pacific meeting, scheduled for October 2020 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Rinjani Geotourism Festival 2020

The first virtual Geotourism Festival 2020 in Indonesia in July 2020 aimed to promote West Nusa Tenggara’s geotourism and showcasing local cultural performances and a wide array of local products and tour packages, including virtual tours around Rinjani-Lombok UNESCO Global Geoparks, and an international webinar on Geotourism in Asia Pacific.

The Southeast Asian Biosphere Reserve (SeaBRnet) held its first online meeting on 16 July 2020. The event served as a platform for the SeaBRnet community to share stories of the impacts of Covid-19 on their sites, offer ideas and solutions for how to return to a new – and better – normal, and help communities across the region from the impacts of future crises.
The discussion concluded that this pandemic has changed the lives of everyone – however that Biosphere Reserves are well placed to provide practical solutions to the post-pandemic world on issues such as reviving local economies through targeted development and delivery of locally-based goods and services while ensuring the protection of biodiversity.

 

The online MasterClass on Disaster Communication for UNESCO Designated Sites with sub-topic on “Education for Disaster Risk Reduction Integrating Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development Goals for in-Service Teacher Training” discussed how science communication and disaster communication can contribute to the safety measures  during the reopening of schools after the disasters caused by natural hazards such as earthquake and tsunami, as well as biological hazards such as COVID-19.

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The toolkit was developed by consolidating good practices, lessons learnt, success factors, and challenges on the establishment and journeys of 11 National Platforms and 1 Regional Platform.
The objective of this toolkit is to inspire other youth and young professionals in the region to also contribute their knowledge, capacities, and capabilities in SETI to build resilience towards disaster and climate change through practical and policy initiatives at the local, national or regional levels. To encourage and motivate young people to work collaboratively under similar platform to create opportunities for transdisciplinary interaction and communication among the young people to close the gap between hard and soft sciences to find solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change.
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The objective of the Webinar is to sensitize the guide for Tsunami Evacuation during COVID-19 to the local disaster management offices in Tsunami prone areas in Indonesia as well as to other disaster management stakeholders.
The Webinar concluded that in disaster emergency, especially during a tsunami threat, tsunami evacuation should be prioritized and override the “Stay at Home” instruction under the COVID-19 protocol. The COVID-19 protection protocol should be implemented as best as possible in the Tsunami Evacuation Shelters. The local government and the community’s tsunami evacuation team need to prepare and implement the COVID-19 protocol in the Tsunami Evacuation Shelters among others: ensure physical distancing; the evacuates to keep wearing their mask; the availability of water and soap, hand sanitizer, and thermometer in the shelter; be prepared to separate people that has been identified as ODP (Person under Observation) and PDP (Patient under Treatment); and keep record of names and addresses of the people in the evacuation shelter. The local disaster management offices was requested to use the Tsunami Evacuation during COVID-19 guide as the basis for them to develop their own contingency plan for tsunami evacuation during COVID-19.
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Sustainability Insight YouTube channel
Science for Sustainable Development (Japanese Funds-in-Trust Facebook page)
Sustainability Insight (Facebook)
Malaysia UNESCO Cooperation Programme Facebook page
 

UNESCO-APEKSI Webinar on Protecting the Rights of Persons with Disabilities during the COVID-19

UNESCO Jakarta in collaboration with  the Association of Indonesian Municipalities (APEKSI) has conducted a webinar on Protecting the Rights of Persons with Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic on 18 August 2020.
This webinar served as a platform to discuss national and local policies enacted in the context of COVID-19 that have a significant impact on persons with disabilities and on their rights.
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The safety for journalists must be a priority for governments, media companies, journalists themselves and the public because journalists are at the forefront of providing vital information to the public even during a global pandemic.
This was the main takeaway from the regional webinar on "Safety for Journalists" that was organized by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) in collaboration with UNESCO Jakarta on 4 June 2020. Ms Philomena Pragasam, Director of AIBD, who opened the discussion, noted that even amid the COVID-19 pandemic journalists continued to perform their duties in providing news and information to the public. Thus, media companies and governments must not neglect the safety of journalists and media workers.
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UNESCO Empowers Journalists to Counter Disinformation and Misinformation

As disinformation and misinformation escalates during the current pandemic, public’s access to trusted and timely information becomes ever more vital. More than ever, we are aware of the urgency of fighting disinformation and strengthening quality journalism. Journalists have a pivotal role to play in reporting effectively and to deliver reliable public information during critical times.
The handbook is becoming an essential resource for journalism educators and practitioners globally to practice journalism in digital age. The UNESCO handbook “Journalism, ‘Fake News’ and Disinformation” in Malay and Tetum are freely available for everyone to download. The handbook are also available in other languages including English, French, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.
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UNESCO Jakarta and Citi Indonesia under the support of Citi Foundation have launched the “Wear Your Mask: campaign to avert the spread of the COVID-19 while supporting traditional weavers and promoting cultural messages. Under the Creative Youth at the Indonesian Heritage Program aimed at building entrepreneurial capacity of youth living in and around famous heritage destinations,  more than 65 youth-led brands from Yogyakarta, Borobudur, Klaten, Kotatua Jakarta, Toba, Lombok  and Bali are currently participating in the campaign. Under the campaign, lectures by anthropologist on the stories behind the traditional motifs of the textiles, as well as workshops on how to create stylish and innovative facemasks out of traditional are being organized.   Story-telling class is also on the menu to equip the youths to promote their products in social media.  Lutfi Koriah Yunani, a youth batik maker from Klaten (Central Java) stated that this campaign  inspired her to create a new batik mask series on the theme of  Indonesia’s Independence Day in August. “Once my mask was uploaded on the social media channel of the UNESCO-CITI project, I started receiving more orders and had to increase my product capacity”, told Lutfi happily.
The masks designed by youth under the campaign can be viewed at  the official Instagram account of the project, @kitamudakreatif.   To further assist them in promoting their products, UNESCO and CITI Indonesia will host  the Virtual Fashion and Mask Show Live through YouTube  platform in mid-September.

The worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 had detrimental effect on culture and creative sector.  Due to restrictions on movement and mass-gathering as well as on “non-essential” commercial activities,   tourism was put on halt, live concerts and events got cancelled; and demands for cultural products dropped, reducing radically the income opportunities for artists and those working in creative sector.
In response to the situation, UNESCO Jakarta and Citi Indonesia under the support of Citi Foundation  have initiated a special activity in support of young artists between June and August 2020 under the UNESCO Global movement Resili Art and as part of UNESCO-CITI program on Creative Youth at Indonesian Heritage Sites.  Targeted are those young artists from rural areas and small towns, who often fall outside the scope of governmental support. More than 40 young artists from Yogyakarta, Kotatua Jakarta, Toba and Bali are benefiting from this special activity.
In addition to inviting Indonesia’s popular artists to share their experience in handling this challenging time, the activity also provides training sessions to young artists on crisis management and how to create promotional materials to enhance their visibility online.   By the end of the activity, the participating young artists will have created promotional video on their works with the technical guidance of professional videographers.  The video will be widely disseminated across various social media platform with the help of UNESCO Jakarta, CITI Indonesia and its volunteers.

Virtual Hands-on Training for Young Cultural Entrepreneur 

 

Premium professional entities such as Documentation Center of Architecture (Pusat Dokumentasi Arsitektur), online marketing company Moselo, Jakarta Institute of Arts (Institut Kesenian Jakarta), and makeup business tycoon Sariayu Martha Tilaar, provided lectures to guide youth entrepreneurs on the history of Kotatua, how to optimize social media content and feature, making quality smartphone photography, infographic making, stage makeup, and heritage-inspired craft product development.

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"Good Times Travelling Together"

The hard-hit tourism industry during COVID-19 prevents people from travelling to sites and destinations alike. Despite these challenges, there is always different ways and angles of looking at tourism – it is now chance to learn more of the historical narrative of a site and to create a compelling story and interpretation of the site applicable to both tourism and creative products.
The “Good Times Travelling Together” session on 24 June 2020 targeted youth living and around Kotatua Jakarta, as one of the sites within the overall project. The mentoring started with a historical overview of Kotatua Jakarta by Ms Purwestri, followed with a talk on storynomics, a marketing method to communicate tourism through story-telling by Ms Malagina. Storynomics is a current trend in tourism used to strengthen the ties between consumers with the products and the producers.
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Indonesian Film Actors Discuss Women in Indonesia Film and Cinema through Virtual KAFEIN-UNESCO Conference

Balanced and equitable representation of both men and women is one of the critical conditions of the diversity of cultural expression, a principle hailed by UNESCO through its 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
In partnership with the association of film researchers, Pengkaji Film Indonesia or "KAFEIN", UNESCO Jakarta looks into the opportunity of developing a gender-disaggregated data collection framework to track whether men and women avail of equal and equitable opportunities in terms of, among others, access to training and education, employment, and funding to develop their career within the film industry.
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Let's Do a Happy Branding

We, human always strive to do better and find the positive amidst any difficult situations. This time of quarantine during COVID-19 turns out to be an opportunity for many to deepen their knowledge and hone their skills while businesses halt, in order to come back stronger. Under the support of Citi Foundation, UNESCO Jakarta together with Pusat Dokumentasi Arsitektur organized the third round of virtual business mentoring sessions using WhatsApp and Youtube to support young cultural entrepreneurs in informal sector in Kotatua Jakarta, following the previous two rounds on design thinking and business and financial planning. 
This session intends to prepare the young entrepreneurs for a subsequent activity “Branding Bahagia” (Happy Branding) aimed at supporting the actual brand image development of each young cultural entrepreneurs.
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Managing UNESCO-designated sites during the pandemic – video reports from the field: Cibodas Biosphere Reserve, Indonesia


A Toolkit on Youth and Young Professionals in Science, Engineering, Technology, and Innovation for Disaster Risk Reduction

Open Science for Networked Societies and Industry 4.0 in Asia and the Pacific


Biosphere Reserve Zonation in Asia and the Pacific: Legal Context and Perspectives


Good Practices on Applying Eco-labelling in Asia and the Pacific Biosphere Reserves


A Standard Framework for Biosphere Reserve Management Informed by Sustainability Science


Risk Communication for Social Awareness on COVID-19
Panduan Langkah Evakuasi Darurat Peringatan Dini Tsunami dalam Situasi COVID-19


Kewartawanan, ‘Berita Palsu’ & Disinformasi: Buku Panduan untuk Pendidikan dan Latihan Kewartawanan


Journalizmu, ‘Notísia Falsa’ & Dezinformasaun: Manuál ba Edukasaun no Formasaun Jornalizmuc