JaWAra Internet Sehat is a project to encourage young digital activists in the region to become community leaders (local champions) who will initiate and drive digital literacy education programs with a local and bottom-up approach, creating changes from the grassroots. This project was undertaken by ICT Watch and WhatsApp, with the support of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) of the Republic of Indonesia, Relawan TIK Indonesia (Indonesia ICT Volunteers) and Digital Literacy National Movement "SIBERKREASI".

In their activities, the local champions provide digital literacy education to many elements of society, especially to people in villages/rural areas, children, people with disabilities, youth, and women (mothers), through local approaches that are easily accepted, such as wayang (traditional puppets) show, local cultural content, movies, games (cards/snakes and ladders), etc.

This project also develops the distance learning system through https://akademi.internetsehat.id and Digital Literacy WhatsApp ChatBot at https://s.id/kakinat, so the communities can carry out self-learning for some topics, such as combating hoaxes, digital security, personal data protection, etc. The chatbot has already followed by 21,345 participants.

In 2021, this program recruited 60 local youth champions (JaWAra) who successfully ran 108 digital literacy education programs in their respective areas. This program reached 29,731 people in 73 regencies/cities from 26 provinces. In 2022, we recruited another 100 local youth champions who ran 186 digital literacy programs, reaching 237,784 people. In 2023, we focused on tackling hoaxes toward the General Election of 2024. The JaWAra were involved in the education in 8 cities that covered 3,681 participants.

We documented some inspirational stories of this program (2021-2022) in the book "Bunga Rampai (Multiauthor) Jawara Internet Sehat" which can be downloaded at https://jawara.internetsehat.id/buku-bunga-rampai/

https://jawara.internetsehat.id/

• Indonesia

• Youth
• Women
• People with disabilities
• Remote and rural communities

The process of this program is simple and replicable by any stakeholders. Initially, we recruited the local champions by selecting the applications they submitted through the online form, which consisted of their profile, the digital literacy challenges they found in their area, and the solution they were trying to offer through this program. Afterward, the selected candidates were interviewed until the local champions were chosen. The chosen local youth champions (JaWAra Internet Sehat) represented diverse areas from Indonesia, genders, and backgrounds. The next step was providing them with relevant knowledge and insights through the Training of Trainers (ToT) by various digital literacy experts/practitioners who come from multi-stakeholders. Next, the champions proposed activities with the assistance of the ICT Watch team, until the activities were successfully implemented. We discussed the support in the form of budget, content, and resource persons to reach maximum impact.

Each specific digital literacy program development in this project came from the local champions’ initiatives; therefore, they reached the target audiences more easily and felt closer and more familiar to the respective beneficiaries. The programs ran were more than conventional educative activities like classes or meetings, but the champions programs were also innovative, for example:
- developing a “Digital Literacy” card game for elementary school children;
- arranging Friday sermon “Digital Literacy” insertion scripts for Friday prayers, obligatory worship for Muslim men;
“Digital Literacy” traditional puppet (Wayang) shows and involving the youth villagers in the making
- combining local arts with “Digital Literacy” messages

All these JaWAra Internet Sehat or local champions’ programs were documented at https://jawara.internetsehat.id, from the process to the completed activities and a book that compiles some inspirational stories of this program. This makes it easier for others to read, learn, and replicate the programs

The project encourages multi-stakeholder collaboration to create an ecosystem that aids the local champions to do more without relying solely on the support from ICT Watch as a civil society organization and other stakeholders such as the local government, local colleges, universities, local communities, and many more.

Some of those stakeholders are interested in adopting JaWAra Internet Sehat to develop more programs and activities on digital literacy. Additionally, ICT Watch continuously encourages multi-stakeholder collaboration to sustain the project and create more local champions from other areas.

We've always followed three fundamental principles to assure the long-term viability of our program:
1). Assuring multi-stakeholder cooperation: we believe and ensure that our fieldwork involves a diverse range of stakeholders in an equitable, inclusive, and participatory way.
2) Strengthening the ability of local actors: we always ask various local actors and sources to be actively involved in the preparation, execution, and development of activities in every program we conduct.
3). Making use of open online platforms and creative-commons licensed information: we ensure that our web platform is free and accessible to the public. Furthermore, all the content we generate is always licensed under a Creative Commons license.

The education materials and tools were compiled in some micro-sites, as follows:
- Combating Hoax: s.id/lawanhoaks
- Protect Your Privacy: s.id/jagapribadi
- Financial Literacy: s.id/keuangandigital
- Child Online Protection: s.id/anakdigital
- Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: s.id/stopkbgo
or you can find it in https://akademi.internetsehat.id

The JaWAra Internet Sehat project promotes WSIS values to maximize the opportunities ICTs can offer for the betterment of society. Regardless of their background, everyone should be able to access the ever-improved technology and ever-flowing information, get the benefits, and be empowered. The project developed and fostered the knowledge by involving people, and it urged a multi-stakeholder effort at all levels; therefore, the benefits reaped can touch people’s lives inclusively and holistically. The project creates a learning ecosystem and promotes sustainability by developing replicable methods or tools, increasing people’s skills and capacity in ICT, and enabling more people to learn within their respective cultural backgrounds. To fully benefit from the Information Society, we believe everyone needs to have the appropriate abilities. As a result, capacity development and ICT literacy are critical. ICTs can help achieve universal education by delivering education and teacher training, enhancing circumstances for lifelong learning, including for persons not enrolled in formal education, and boosting professional skills. Our project aims to empower local communities to use ICTs and encourage the creating of valuable and socially relevant content for the common good. We facilitate education and training programs to establish new types of ICT-based networking that collaborate with several national digital literacy initiatives.