UNICEF Indonesia welcomes new Representative Gunilla Olsson

Gunilla Olsson, UNICEF Indonesia Representative

©UNICEF/2012

JAKARTA, 1^st September 2014 – UNICEF Indonesia’s new Representative Gunilla Olsson has taken up her post in Jakarta today.

She has moved to the country from New York where she was UNICEF’s Director of Governance, UN and Multilateral Affairs for two years.

“It’s an exciting time to be taking on this role in Indonesia as the country welcomes a new government,” she said. “I’m looking forward to working with them on the next five-year plan for UNICEF’s involvement in Indonesia.”

Gunilla Olsson with staff at the UNICEF office in Jakarta

©UNICEF Inodnesia/2014/Razak

Ms. Olsson has a degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Stockholm and has worked with numerous international organisations in the past, including IFAD, ILO, FAO, GTZ, Sida and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

She is a national of Sweden and is married with two daughters.

Ms. Olsson replaces former Country Office Representative Angela Kearney who will become UNICEF’s Representative in Pakistan.

UNICEF, Government of Indonesia call on media to help #ENDviolence against children

JAKARTA, 7 July 2014 – The Government of Indonesia and UNICEF have joined together to urge the media to help #ENDviolence against children by raising awareness of the risks to children and the impact they suffer, as well as showing children affected by violence how they can get help.

The call came as part of roundtable discussions between the Minister of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, Linda Gumelar, the Minister of Health, Nafsiah Mboi, UNICEF’s Representative, Angela Kearney, and the editors of several newspapers, radio and television stations in Jakarta on the coverage of violence against children.

Unilever extends support to cut down on open defecation

JAKARTA, 4th July 2014 – The Unilever Indonesia Foundation and UNICEF are further strengthening their collaboration in addressing the country’s challenges in terms of safe water and sanitation.

After a first contribution of €100,000 in 2013, the Foundation has now donated €200,000 to the UNICEF WASH programme which aims at ending open defecation and improving hygienic practices in Indonesia.

Indonesia celebrates children’s rights with innovative solutions to development challenges

By Sarah Grainger

Anies Baswedan takes quality education to rural Indonesia through a social movement with young people. © UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Harimawan

JAKARTA, 24 April 2014 – UNICEF Indonesia brought together a number of leading innovators at an event in Jakarta’s Erasmus Huis on Wednesday to present their ideas on how to tackle some of the key challenges children continue to face in this booming South-East Asian economy. 

The TED-style event, called ‘ACTIVATE talks’, was part of UNICEF’s celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). UNICEF has also declared 2014 the “Year of Innovations and Equity”.

Indonesia launches Study on Digital Safety

"Children may be exposed to similar risks like in the physical world when they are surfing the internet, such as violence and abuse, including sexual exploitation, and trafficking." says UNICEF Indonesia Representative Angela Kearney.
© UNICEFIndonesia/2014/Klavert

As Indonesia experiences a rapid increase in the number of children and young people accessing the internet through mobile devices, the Government in Jakarta is collaborating with UNICEF to ensure that children can make best use of the internet while at the same minimizing the protection risks they may encounter during their online journey.

A key step in this process has been the conclusion of a study on “Digital Citizenship and Safety among Children and Adolescents in Indonesia”, whose results UNICEF and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology launched on 18 February in Jakarta.  The study was commissioned by UNICEF as part of its multi-country project on Digital Citizenship and Safety. It covers the age group 10 to 19 years, a huge population of 43.5 million children and adolescents.

More children than ever before are surviving past their fifth birthday

Saving children’s lives will benefit entire societies 

By Angela Kearney, UNICEF Representative Indonesia

The opportunity to end preventable child deaths has never been greater than it is today.

Thanks to proven solutions and global and national efforts, the lives of 90 million children were saved globally in the past 22 years; children who would otherwise have died if mortality rates had remained at the same levels as in 1990.

Half as many children died in 2012 than in 1990, with the annual number of under-five deaths falling from 12.6 million in 1990 to 6.6 million in 2012.

In Indonesia, we have also witnessed remarkable progress. While in 1990, as many as 385,000 under-five children died, today, the number has fallen to 152,000. As we take a moment to savour this good news, we must also take stock and remember that we are failing the more than 400 children in Indonesia who still die needlessly every day. And we also need to be aware that although the overall reduction in child deaths is impressive, recent data show that this decline has been slowing down over the past 5 to 10 years. If the current trajectory continues, the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 4 of reducing child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015 remains at risk.

Markus and his honai – The rough road to secondary education in Papua province

By Michael Klaus, UNICEF Indonesia

Markus left his village at the age of 14
to enroll in secondary school.
© UNICEF Indonesia/2013/Klaus

Megapura in Papua Province, Indonesia, July 2013 – It has been four years that Markus last saw his parents, and it will at least be another one until he may be able to go back home again to his village Kalbok - a 10-day walk away in the highlands of Papua province. The 18 year old is in 12th grade and he knows he would not be in school today had he stayed home. 

Markus has grown a lot during these four years, and he now is the leader of his honai in Megapura, a big traditional hut that serves as a boarding home for 50 adolescents and young adults. They all visit either a secondary school or a professional training institution in nearby Wamena, in the heart of Papua province in Indonesia’s Far East.

“The Highland districts in Papua have the worst child indicators of the whole country,” explains Margaret Sheehan, Chief of the UNICEF Field Office that covers both Papua and West Papua. More than 120 out of every 1,000 children die in their first five years of life, more than three times the national average. Only a third of the population has access to safe water and less than one in four can use a latrine.

It’s about abilities – UNICEF Indonesia launched the State of the World’s Children report 2013 on children with disabilities

Joining forces with gold medal winners at the Special Olympics and key activists for the rights of people with disabilities, UNICEF Indonesia launched this year’s State of the World’s Children report, together with the Minister of Social Affairs and other government counterparts on May 30th 2013.

“When talking about children with special needs, we often rather think about what they are NOT able to do, rather than looking at what they actually CAN contribute to society,” said UNICEF Representative Angela Kearney during the event at the disability-friendly Ministry building in downtown Jakarta. “This needs to change. Like in many other countries, children with disabilities are amongst the most marginalized and invisible children in Indonesia. Often parents simply hide them away, because they are ashamed or they don’t know how best to support them.”

Angela Kearney with Special Olympics gold medalists, Adi (left) and Stephanie (right)
© UNICEF Indonesia / 2013 / Klavert