Today was the first day of filming for our upcoming Public Service Announcement (PSA) to help raise awareness about the fair treatment of domestic workers amongst Indonesian employers. The PSA is going to be short and sweet, just three-minutes long.
It’s hard to pack a lot into three minutes, especially when a country doesn’t already have legal parameters in place to protect and help guide employers on how to treat their domestic worker.
We turned to the research and consultations we had done with domestic workers and NGOs in Indonesia. The resonating needs that came through were that fair working hours (i.e. not being on call 24-hours a day) and a weekly day off are important to domestic workers.
So back to the three minutes we have to communicate this to employers… We decided to split the PSA up into different ‘voices’. The first voice will set the scene. Here, a domestic worker will talk about her experience working for an Indonesian employer, the good and the bad. The second voice is an NGO activist who advocates for the rights of domestic workers. She will delve deeper into the topic and explain how employers can create a healthy work environment for their domestic worker. And finally, the third voice will bring the issue home on a practical and personal level. This well-known public figure will open his home to our cameras to show how his family co-exists with their domestic workers.
The end result of the PSA is for viewers to watch and listen to these three different voices, and then think about their own ‘voice’ — in other words, what is their relationship like with their own domestic worker, and would adopting any of the practices shared in the video make it better?
The PSA will premiere in Jakarta in May 2016, and will be available online following the premiere.