BKKBN Collaborates With Universities To Deploy Students To Assist In Handling Community Stunting

Head of BKKBN Hasto Wardoyo (Diah Ayu/VOI)

JAKARTA - The National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) is collaborating with a number of universities in reducing stunting rates in Indonesia.

Stunting is a condition in which children do not grow according to their age. In children who are stunted, brain cells do not develop optimally. So it affects intelligence so that there are those who think late or are less intelligent.

Head of the BKKBN Hasto Wardoyo said that this collaboration was included in the Merdeka Campus program, where students run 20 credits of stunting themed lectures.

A number of stunting management programs that can be carried out by students through the Merdeka Campus activities are to build villages and humanitarian projects. In addition, students can also do community service and the thematic Community Service Program (KKN).

"There were 11 universities at the beginning that had joined the stunting eradication. Hopefully, there will be 4.600 universities so that all villages can be touched with stunting alleviation assistance students," said Hasto at the virtual 2021 National Symposium, Tuesday, October 26.

In its implementation, Hasto said university students could help strengthen the planning and budgeting for stunting handling by the village government, then improve the quality of the implementation of activities as well as increase the capacity of human resources.

In addition, the community can provide coaching and mentoring, and advocacy to the village government, as well as problems related to stunting handling data.

"This is a family companion that we will present in the midst of society. We must be determined with students and universities that through assistance, family assistance and universities are present in the midst of the people," said Hasto.

Continuing, the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture, Muhadjir Effendi, said that the collaboration between universities and the BKKBN regarding the handling of stunting could also target students as prospective brides through premarital education.

Muhadjir views this as important because education about stunting must be traced from the most upstream level, namely each individual who will build a household.

"In this collaboration, the first thing that must be touched is not the residents or the community who are already in pairs, but the students and students who are now in college, which will eventually lead to marriage," he said. Muhadjir.

"Because we know that many cases of stunting start from a lack of understanding in relation to healthy living. Especially those suffered by teenagers are the result of an irrational diet, causing disturbances in the development of the fetus in the womb of young women who suffer from malnutrition has strong implications for the emergence of stunting births," he added.

Thus, continued Muhadjir, there are two targets to be achieved in the collaboration between universities and the BKKBN.

On the one hand, providing awareness and education to students who will eventually become married couples, and also in the context of community service to provide explanations for guidance and assistance as well as solving stunting problems in the community.