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Angela Kearney: In search of adventure, Working for children
Adventure: Kearney recalled working as a midwife in New Zealand and having so much fun with her job
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span class="inline inline-center">Adventure: Kearney recalled working as a midwife in New Zealand and having so much fun with her job. However, as a young person, she felt an urge to find adventure.
Angela Kearney, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative in Indonesia, left her home in New Zealand when she was 22 to travel the world in search of fun, adventure and unpredictability.
Now 60, she has been traveling to many places and believes that fun, adventure and unpredictability have made her happy wherever she is as she seeks ways to make the world a better home for children.
'My favorite place of all time is home, New Zealand. But where I am at this time is my favorite,' she told The Jakarta Post.
Kearney recalled working as a midwife in New Zealand and having so much fun with her job. However, as a young person, she felt an urge to find adventure.
She realized that she had to leave home. The holder of an advanced diploma in nursing focusing on maternal and child health from New Zealand's Christchurch Polytechnic then went to Papua New Guinea as a volunteer midwife.
Kearney has not stopped since.
She worked for Save the Children for nine years, as a manager and advisor.
Kearney then worked for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Afghanistan to develop and coordinate a multi-sector programs aimed at sustainable livelihoods.
She joined UNICEF in 1998 as an emergency officer in Khartoum, Sudan. In 2002, she transferred to Kabul, Afghanistan, as deputy representative, serving until 2003.
Kearney was UNICEF representative in Liberia from 2003 to 2006 before moving to Angola until 2009.
Since 2009, Kearney has been UNICEF representative in Indonesia. Her term here will end soon and she will be transferred to Pakistan next month.
In the last five years in Indonesia, she said she had witnessed many successes regarding children's issues, including efforts to improve child nutrition.
Kearney said the 'Seribu Hari Pertama Kehidupan' (The First Thousand Days of Life) movement had renewed focus on malnutrition and stunting ' and had garnered high-level political engagement, as demonstrated by a presidential decree.
'Indonesia has a real problem on stunting, affecting approximately 36 percent of Indonesian children under 5 years old, because children don't get the right food,' Kearney said. 'It's not about the quantity, it's the quality of food ' which starts immediately when a baby is born.'
Kearney also appreciated UNICEF's collaboration of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), which pushed to increase the minimum age for marriage for women to 18 from 16.
'Indonesia was one of the first signatures for the Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC], but there is some Indonesian legislation that is still not in line with the CRC. One of those is that one in four girls marry before 18, while the CRC says that girls should marry after 18,' she said.
Kearney said girls should only marry when older than 18. Those who marry young have a greater chance of having babies early, young mothers have a greater chance of dying or developing problems during pregnancy and delivery and their babies face a greater risk of sickness or dying.
'So maternal and child mortality and morbidity tie in with early marriage,' Kearney said.
UNICEF had also assisted the Development Planning Board (Bappenas) to prepare a presidential decree on holistic integrated early childhood development.
'This is a major step toward providing ECD [early childhood development] services to all children,' Kearney said.
However, there are still many things to be done, Kearney says, placing a lot of hope in the incoming government of Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo.
'President-elect Jokowi is really engaging with youth and young people. We know that he and his team really want to look at youth and we think that's a fabulous opportunity,' Kearney said.
Urgent issues that must also be highlighted by the new government are how to implement the Millennium Development Goals related to child health, maternal health and sanitation, she said.
Kearney said that Indonesia has the second highest number of people in the world who openly defecate, which leads to diarrhea ' the cause of death for a third of Indonesian children below 1 year old.
UNICEF also looked forward to working with the new government to improve quality and equity in education, she said, as research showed that around 2 million children aged 7 to 15 who come from the poorest families do not go to school.
During her time in the archipelago, Kearney has traveled from Aceh to Papua and she has learned that Indonesian people have determination, kindness and resilience ' values she will take with her to Pakistan.
'I've got much more to do in my life, and one [thing] is to learn to be more patient, more kind and Indonesia has helped me with that,' said Kearney.
' Photos courtesy of UNICEF
