Complementary food

We are highly appreciative of the coverage that you provide to issues regarding women and children, and wish to thank you for providing front page pictorial coverage of the launch of the Complementary Food Initiative which is being undertaken by the government of Indonesia with Unicef support.

While we have always valued the high quality of your reporting, we found your pictorial coverage of the event to be inaccurate. You described the program as one which distributes free milk, when in fact the initiative is designed to provide complementary low-cost nutritious food fortified with vitamins and nutrients like iron and zinc to children aged between six and 24 months.

Such food has been made available to families with children within that age range at a price of Rp 500 per 500 gram pack through Posyandu (integrated health service posts) in selected areas. Proceeds from the highly subsidized food packets will be used to fund a PKK (Family Welfare Movement) program to educate people on how to provide nutritious food to infants and young children using local produce.

I hope this clarification will provide your readers with a better picture of our efforts to help poor families during this very difficult period.

DARADJAT A. NATANAGARA

(Acting) Senior Program Officer/

Component Chief, ASM

Unicef Indonesia