Dompet Dhuafa Health Program in Optimizing the Golden Period of Early Childhood, Through Fulfillment of Nutrition, Sanitation, and Developmental Stimulation

JAKARTA – Penghimpunan Filantropi Indonesia in collaboration with Dompet Dhuafa, Tanoto Foundation and Yayasan Plan Internasional Indonesia, explores how important it is to pay attention to and optimize the golden period of early childhood through three critical aspects of life such as nutrition, sanitation and stimulation. Packed through a Philanthropy Sharing Session online via Zoom on Tuesday (14/2/2023) with the title “Optimization of the Golden Period of Early Childhood through Fulfillment of Nutrition, Sanitation, and Developmental Stimulation”.

The webinar is divided into 2 sessions, the first session will be filled with Good Practice Programs in the Community that have been carried out by government partners, covering aspects of fulfilling nutrition, stimulation and early childhood care, as well as good sanitation. Session two continued with the PMBA gold standard and early childhood developmental stimulation. 

Nova Mulyani, Coordinator of SIGAP Children’s Home explained how the implementation of the SIGAP Children’s Home Care program assisted by Tanoto Foundation, other panelists Herie Ferdian,  WASH Project Manager, Yayasan Plan International Indonesia, explained about the Hygiene Sanitation program that implements sanitation messages.

Dompet Dhuafa as a philanthropic institution, focuses on 5 program pillars, one of which is health, it also supports by initiating integrated programs to prevent and overcome nutritional problems. Among them are Healthy Areas, Healthy Posts, Youth Posyandu, Nutrition Posts, Sanitation Sanitation Programs and Midwives for the Country.

Yeni Purnamasari, GM of Dompet Dhuafa Health Program, explained one of the programs developed in 2022, namely the nutrition post program that focuses on stunting prevention efforts and nutrition with a boost that can lead to behaviour change.

“The results are quite good, yes, as much as 82% of the success or graduation rate for the group that entered into this nutrition post-program intervention, which we then monitored for approximately 5 months until there was a change in behaviour at home,” said Yeni. 

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Furthermore, Yeni also explained the output indicators of programs in preventing and managing nutritional problems. 

“So we focus on the absence of maternal mortality in the target area, the coverage of pregnant women not anemia, the coverage of exclusive breastfeeding then the intervention of toddlers, especially in underweight and also stunting and then there is a sanitation program,” added Yeni. 

Meanwhile, according to Hesti K. P. Tobing, IKMI Supervisory Board 2020-2023, early childhood optimization of child growth and development depends on parents and the surrounding environment. A global gold guide for infant and child feeding has also been developed to fulfil nutrition (PMBA).

“Four feedings of babies by WHO and UNICEF, this is the gold standard, including milking babies immediately after birth, giving exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months, giving complementary foods (MP-ASI) starting at 6 months of age, continuing to milk until the baby is more than 2 years old,” said Hesti.

Firesta Farizal, Child Psychologist of Mentari Anakku explained the importance of proper stimulation in the golden period, because it is the foundation of human capital development because children who are healthy and grow optimally can become economically productive adults.  

“Child development, the main aspects are 3 so there are physical or motor, cognitive and language, as well as social-emotional, so if we talk about stimulation, what is stimulated are these 3 aspects,” said the woman who is familiarly called Eta. 

The webinar continued with a discussion and question and answer session, which the audience enthusiastically welcomed. 

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Dompet Dhuafa hopes to work with related parties, join hands and continue to accompany the community because mentoring is key to this program. Dompet Dhuafa also always strives so that people can be empowered in their respective environments.

“Dompet Dhuafa is committed to being a collaborative organization, let’s realize together the fulfilment of good nutrition and this child needs support from various parties. Hopefully, it can reach wider and there will be many complementary partnership opportunities of course and become a big joint effort to fill the gap, Particularly those involving stunting, wasting, and underweight. This problem must not stop; we must accompany the community, and the community is also empowered to make efforts so that it does not depend on anyone but can optimize local resources in their respective regions,” concluded Yeni in the closing statement.