Students and young people have a significant role to solve problems of Food Security and Health, Environmental Health, and Reproductive Health in Alor regency. Located at Taman Suaka Alam Pesisir - TSAP (natural conservation park) Sabanjar Beach, two days of training sparked the participant’s awareness of the problems above. On the first day (04/06/2022), Otto Nodi Atyanto, area manager of CD Bethesda in Alor explained Food Security in Alor is related to health problems, especially stunting. Stunting is a growth failure among toddlers when they should grow. The growth disorders cannot be improved over 2 years old.
Indonesia is the fourth contributor to stunting in the world and the second one in Southeast Asia. For the last fifteen years, NTT province has been the first contributor to stunting in Indonesia. Alor regency is the third in NTT province with a prevalence above 30% over the WHO limit of 20%. What are the causes of stunting? They are lack of nutritional intake, lack of parental care (bathing, washing hands before eating), ongoing illness, adjacent pregnancies, low quality and quantity of healthy intake, late breastfeeding, lack of attention to children's diet, lack of nutritional intake during pregnancy and sanitation problems or unhealthy lifestyles. The first thousand days of pregnancy must be well-observed, however, many pregnant women experience chronic malnutrition, children in the village are commonly taken care of by their grandmothers, not their parents, and the mother's hands and body must be cleaned when she’s giving breast milk otherwise the milk can be contaminated. Cleanliness should not be ignored in the child's growth. Sanitation is substantial to prevent children from intestinal worms and losing weight because of the wasted nutrients.
Actually, Alor has abundant food sources in the mountains and sea, such as sweet potato, fish, etc. Currently, most of the villages allocated their funds for handling sanitation, such as clean water availability for reducing stunting rates. When students return to their villages, such as during KKN (field study), they are encouraged to be agents of change by sharing local food processing skills.
Otto
showed a video of the survey results on fast food safety (snacks, ice, etc.)
from YLKI (consumer protection) in Sulawesi when he worked there. The research
proved that children often consume tasty snacks with attractive colorful pictures
on the package, even with prizes inside. The sugar and salt in snacks have high
calories that make children feel full a whole day. It contributed to child
malnutrition.
People in the village sometimes practice bad habits, they used the money from selling rice, corn, eggs, bananas, and beans to buy instant foods such as noodles, snacks, eggs from the shop, molen cakes, etc. Food sources from the garden have more nutrients. As an agent of change, youth must be determined to ‘plant what you consume, and consume what you have been planted.’ We must have food sovereignty and know well the process where our foods and beverages are from.
Valdo,
one of the participants, asked, "Does stunting happen only among poor
families rather than rich families?” "Stunting occurs not only in poor
families, but other families faced stunted children due to behavioral aspects,
clean and healthy lifestyle," Otto said. Covid 19 indirectly reduced the
risk of malnutrition and stunting, because people wash their hands before
eating. He also provided further networks with CD Bethesda Alor through training
on local food and traditional medicines that can be attended by health
stakeholders, young people, and students. ***
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