Champions4Children engage for children’s rights in Indonesia

Six of the ten Champions4Children with UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson, Minister of Women Empowerment and Child Protection Yohana Yembise, and MarkPlus founder Hermawan Kartajaya. 

UNICEF Indonesia and its partner Hermawan Kartajaya have launched a Champions4Children initiative, focusing on the main drivers of Indonesia’s society: Youth, Women and Netizens. During this year’s Jakarta Marketing Week, organized traditionally by Pak Hermawan’s company MarkPlus, a group of six highly influential personalities got to the stage and committed to use their clout to foster engagement for children’s rights in Indonesia. The group members (Yenny Wahid, Melanie Subono, M. Farhan, Katyana Wardhana, Dikna Faradiba, Budi Setiawan) will become catalysts for social engagement within their environment, a nucleus of a broad-based Coalition for Children, which UNICEF hopes to build in Indonesia.

In their personal capacity, the Champions will reach out and connect with key actors in government, business, civil society, the arts and academia who have the power to put children at the heart of Indonesia’s development.

UNICEF will collaborate with the Champions to raise awareness on the challenges many children are still facing in Indonesia such as violence and bullying, early marriage, malnutrition or disease. The group is already growing and other influencers are about to join, but could not participate in the event, including Veronica Colondam, Iman Usman, Dion Wiyoko, Ariyo Zidni.

Children first: Investing in children for a prosperous Indonesia

By Gunilla Olsson, Representative UNICEF Indonesia

Children in Indonesia can experience vastly different realities. Imagine a Jakarta boy named Budi (left on top of the infographic), born today in the Bantar Gebang slum. With a healthy start in life, he could reach age 5 in 2020 and be a successful high school student by 2030. Grace (on the right), a young girl from rural Papua would be turning 13 today and coming of age with a high school diploma in 2020. She could head a green technology start-up by 2030 on her way to becoming one of the leaders of her country.

This can be the future of a growing number of children in a prosperous 2030 high-income Indonesia. This reality can endow Indonesia with its future teachers, entrepreneurs, doctors, social workers, engineers, CEOs, and religious leaders.

Their futures could also look radically different.

UNICEF Partners with Indonesia’s Scouts Movement Pramuka

By Kinanti Pinta Karana, UNICEF Indonesia Communication Specialist

Pramuka Chairman Bapak Adhyaksa Dault (sixth rom right), with UNICEF Indonesia Representative Ibu Gunilla Olsson (third from right), Director of Radio Republik Indonesia Ibu Niken Widiastuti (second from right) and Chief of Communication and Resource Mobilization Bapak Michael Klaus (far right) with Chief of UNICEF Makassar Field Office Bapak Purwanta Iskandar and members of Pramuka at the signing 26 November 2015.  © UNICEF Indonesia/2015/Santoso.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, 26 November 2015 - Things were bustling at the Kwartir Nasional Gerakan Pramuka, the Headquarters of Indonesia’s Scouts Movement in Jakarta ahead of a much-anticipated event: The signing of a partnerships agreement between Pramuka and UNICEF Indonesia.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed by Pramuka Chairman Adhyaksa Dault and UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson on 26 November 2015, paves the way for a collaboration to strengthen the implementation of children’s rights in Indonesia.

Bapak Adhyaksa said he had been looking forward to the MOU signing. “Pramuka will use the collaboration with UNICEF to promote the protection of children and their right to express themselves.”

Big Show of Support at Pelindung Anak Sign Up Event

By Nick Baker, Communication and Knowledge Management Officer 

Thousands of people have signed up as a Pelindung Anak, including  Minister Yohana Yembise (second from left) and UNICEF Indonesia National Ambassador Ferry Salim (right). ©UNICEF Indonesia/2015/Nick Baker

Indonesians from all walks of life came together on Universal Children’s Day 2015 to stand up against violence and become a Pelindung Anak (Child Protector).

Ministers, actors, psychologists and models were just some of the people who attended UNICEF Indonesia’s sign up event for its innovative new Pelindung Anak campaign.

The campaign aims to create a movement that raises awareness and fuels action to end violence against children.

Participants were encouraged to visit the campaign website (www.pelindunganak.org), where they could register to receive information on the extent of violence in Indonesia and commit to protect children in their area.

“Violence against children is the silent crisis of Indonesia. It will only stop if all of us come together and protect every child as if they are our own,” UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson said. “If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to protect a child.”

UNICEF global report finds large drop in Indonesian child deaths – but major challenges remain

By Nick Baker, Communication and Knowledge Management Officer 

Around 4.5 million Indonesian children have been saved since 1990. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2015

A new global UNICEF report has highlighted how Indonesia is making substantial progress in reducing child mortality.

The Promise Renewed: 2015 Progress Report stated that the Indonesian under-five mortality rate currently stands at 27 deaths per 1,000 live births compared against 85 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990.

In 1990, an estimated 395,000 children died in Indonesia before reaching their fifth birthday. The corresponding number was 147,000 in 2015. “This is still a shocking number, but it also means that an estimated 4.5 million children have been who would have died if the mortality rate had remained at the 1990 level,” UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson said.

No progress on combatting malnutrition in Indonesia

Nick Baker, Communications and Knowledge Management Officer

UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson discusses the Global Nutrition Report 2014.
©UNICEF Indonesia/2015/Nick Baker

Indonesia has undergone seismic changes over recent years – from economic to political to technological – but one measurement has remained surprisingly stable: malnutrition.

The country has made almost no progress in reducing child malnutrition since 2007, according to the Global Nutrition Report (GNR) 2014, which the Government of Indonesia launched on Monday with UNICEF and other partners. The report assesses various nutrition outcomes for all 193 UN member states.

The GNR 2014 found that a staggering 37 per cent of Indonesian children under five are stunted, which indicates they do not grow properly, both physically and mentally. Poor Indonesians are 50 per cent more likely to be stunted than those in the upper wealth quintile, but still up to 30 per cent of Indonesian children from the wealthiest families are also stunted.

Prosperity rests on stronger efforts to reduce malnutrition

Gunilla Olsson, Representative of UNICEF Indonesia

Children from a traditional village in Sumba Island, East Nusa Tenggara.
©UNICEFIndonesia/2014/Hasan

There is a widespread belief in Indonesia that its people are short by nature. Because generation after generation of family members is small in size, many people assume that physical stature is a genetic trait over which people have no control. 

But science shows that this is not usually the case. Short and thin mothers give birth to small and malnourished children, who grow poorly because they are unable to eat sufficient nutritious food, or they suffer frequent episodes of diarrhea and other infectious diseases. The girls become short and thin mothers, and so the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition continues.

Indonesia remembers Tsunami in Aceh and thanks international community

By Devi Asmarani 

Vice President Jusuf Kalla (left) at UNICEF’s stand at the Tsunami Expo accompanied by UNICEF’s Banda Aceh Field Office Coordinator Umar bin Abdul Azis (second left) and UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Devi Asmarani

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, 26 December 2014 - Thousands of people gathered in Aceh today in a solemn and moving ceremony to remember the Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated much of Indonesia’s westernmost province 10 years ago today. 

Many survivors as well as local and foreign dignitaries attending the ceremony at the Blang Padang public park in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh burst into tears as they listened to poems and songs that were performed accompanied by photos and videos of the disaster.

Acehnese singer Rafly led the audience to sing along with him to a haunting folk song in the local dialect, and prominent poet Taufik Ismail read a poem that recalled the giant waves that swept about 170,000 people to their death.

"Thousands of corpses were sprawled in this field,” said Vice President Jusuf Kalla at the ceremony. “There were feelings of confusion, shock, sorrow, fear and suffering. We prayed.”

But he said the massive help received for Aceh immediately after the tsunami, which left nearly half a million people displaced, helped revive the spirit of the survivors.

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.