Breakthrough ACTION, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with the Ministry of Health’s Direktorat Promosi Kesehatan Dan Pemberdayaan Masyarakat, has been implementing the national multi-media COVID-19 vaccination SIAP campaign along with a community engagement strategy focused in ten districts in five provinces of Indonesia. Hundreds of millions of people have been reached with COVID-19 vaccination messages and over 3,000 change agents trained to provide community level vaccination education and promotion. To sustain the gains achieved and increase reach of the campaign and community engagement activities and increase overall uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines, Breakthrough ACTION is conducting a series of scale up workshops in the 5 provinces. The goal of the Scale Up strategy to for additional districts within the provinces to implement the campaigns and community engagement strategy in their districts with their own financial and human resources. This will work to increase access and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination for communities, and helping them overcome hesitancies and barriers, as well as tackling misinformation on COVID-19 vaccinations.

The first scaling up workshop was conducted in Surabaya, East Java with 40 participants from 12 selected districts with low uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. In the workshop, Breakthrough ACTION shared its best practices and the tools and materials used for the implementation of the overall RCCE plan, the COVID-19 vaccination media strategy, and community engagement activities. The participants were very excited to learn about strategic communication and how to implement campaigns and community engagement activities in their areas. Lumajang and Pasuran districts presented how they implemented their campaigns and activities and shared their best practices. Lumajang shared that they were able to move up from 38th to 35th district with the lowest numbers of vaccinated people. 

The 12 districts made plans on how they will implement the campaign and related activities in their districts. For example, Ponorogo district is ready to adopt the SIAP campaign and the community engagement tools and strategy. The district health office will utilize their own communication platforms and plan to have the SIAP spots on local radio with the support of partners. In Probolinggo they will disseminate the SIAP Campaign through their media partners such as Radio Prosa FM, Radar Bromo, Pro TV, and Tada Today, and on their own social media and podcast platforms. These responses from districts in East Java shows there is an eagerness to take on and disseminate the SIAP media campaign and use the community engagement tools. This first workshop showed that districts are continuing COVID-19 vaccination promotion and that they have their own resources to disseminate the already produced campaign materials. The support of the provincial government also holds a very crucial role in the process. Breakthrough ACTION will continue the Scaleup workshops in the four additional provinces. ##.