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.

Indonesian university students take the lead in Global UNICEF challenge

JAKARTA, Indonesia, 29 January 2015 – A text message service for disaster evacuation. An app to encourage closer communities. A campaign which raises awareness of child violence. A gas detector that monitors poo. 

These are the four innovative ideas developed by Indonesian university students that just made the finals of the 2014 Global Design for UNICEF Challenge.

Indonesia finalists for the Fall 2014 Global Design for UNICEF Challenge. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2015

The Global Design for UNICEF Challenge is an online competition to drive local problem-solving and collaboration around pressing international issues.

More than 130 Indonesian students from UNICEF’s two partner universities: ITB Bandung and IPB Bogor got together in 33 teams and submitted ideas for the 2014 edition of the Challenge. The ones selected for the final round now represent four of the five finalists.

An Uncomfortable Topic

Nick Baker, Communication and Knowledge Management Officer

JAKARTA, 14 January 2015 - My first press conference at UNICEF Indonesia was one I will not soon forget. Why? Because attending journalists were aged from nine to 12 years old and the main subject was poo.

Ten students participating in Media Indonesia’s Reporter Cilik (Young Reporter) Programme were invited to interview a UNICEF Officer to learn more about an uncomfortable topic - open defecation.

More than 54 million Indonesians defecate in the open, because they don’t have a latrine or a toilet. It’s the second highest number of any country in the world. Only India has a higher number.

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.

How the chaos post-tsunami helped Aceh become a child protection pioneer

When a child is accused of a crime, the police tries to use mediation to resolve the situation and in more than half of the case, it works. © UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Achmadi

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, October 2014 – About a year ago, three teenage boys were arrested by police at a sports stadium in Banda Aceh for beating up a 21-year-old man. Two of the boys were 17 and the third had just turned 18. In the past, they would have ended up in jail. But thanks to some far-reaching legal reforms, initiated after the Indian Ocean tsunami, things developed in a different direction.

They were held for 24 hours at the children’s unit at the police station while their families as well as the heads of the villages where they lived were contacted. The victim’s family and village head were also asked to attend the police station where all the parties sat down to talk.

This is a process known as mediation. Police records don’t show how long it took in this instance, but officers say on average its takes three mediation sessions to resolve a case.

The families talked about the situation and tried to come to an agreement about how the perpetrators should be punished. In the end, the families of the three boys agreed to pay the medical expenses of the victim within ten days, or face a court case. The three were then released.

Ten years ago, the police had no mandate to facilitate a mediation like this. The boys would have been facing a trial and a maximum jail sentence of five years. Children used to be treated much like adults when they were accused of committing an offense or a crime. But since the tsunami struck the area on the 26th of December 2004, Indonesia’s Aceh province has made huge strides in how it deals with children who come into contact with the law.

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