TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
'Gerobak Cinta', education and fast action: East Flores regent develops program to reduce stunting
East Flores regency has reduced its stunting rate from 44 percent, one of the highest in the country, to 26 percent through the Gerobak Cinta program.
Change Size
Illustration (Shutterstock/-)
G
em>Gerobak Cinta (Love Cart) is what East Flores Regent Antonius Hubertus Gege Hadjon named his administration’s program to reduce the high rate of stunting in the regency.
The “cart” in the program’s name is metaphorical. Antonius said the cart symbolized the program’s philosophy of fast action to address stunting.
“When we talk about Gerobak Cinta, many people think about a cart for bakso [meatball soup] and other things,” Antonius said in a discussion session at the Reasonable Business Forum on Food and Agriculture (RBF) in Central Jakarta on Tuesday. “But what we mean is how, through love, we help feed these children and overcome stunting.
Through the program, which was initiated in July 2019, Antonius’s administration provided two meals a day for 90 days for more than 2,000 toddlers under the age of 2 in the regency. The meals were made up of local ingredients such as sorgum, kelor (moringa plant), fish, and quail eggs, and were prepared by integrated health services post (Posyandu) workers. The children’s mothers also took part in preparing the meals in order to learn the components of a healthy diet.
After those 90 days, East Flores’s stunting rate of 44 percent, one of the highest in the country, was reduced to 26 percent, below that of the East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) average of 42.46 percent.
Stunting, which the World Health Organization defines as a condition in which a child fails to reach his or her linear growth potential, remains an ongoing problem in Indonesia, but is not the only challenge that the country faces regarding nutrition.
In a speech at the RBF, National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) deputy Arifin Rudiyanto said that Indonesia faced a triple burden of malnutrition, consisting of undernutrition, overnutrition, and micronutrient deficiency.
