Family planning board counts on educated elite
JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Population and Chairman of the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN) Haryono Suyono urged educated families to help the government in guiding other families towards prosperity.
At the opening of a consultative forum of non-governmental organizations, Haryono said his office has started to focus on urging families to take on roles as the "smallest unit" of development.
They are expected not only to accept government campaigns on family planning programs and prosperity, but also to pass on to other families what they have gained and believed from implementing such campaigns.
Before the second long-term development program, which started last April, the smallest units of development were NGOs and various government institutions, he said.
"There are currently some 40 million families in Indonesia. If 10 percent of these can act as units of development, it is already a miraculous achievement," he said.
Role models
Haryono explained that one of the aims of the consultative forum is to identify the types of families who could become role- models. The forum can also discuss the application of the legal bases and theories on family planning programs.
The two-day forum is part of the conceptualizations of several legal milestones, he said.
The passing of Law No. 10, 1992 containing, among others, the definition of a prosperous family according to Indonesian norms, led to the setting of a National Family Day for June 29.
The passing of Governmental Decree No. 21, 1994 containing guidelines for the development of families towards prosperity also resulted in a "Prosperous Family Development Movement" which began on June 1.
"This consultation should find ways of applying these legal milestones in the life of families in the community," Haryono pointed out.
Participants of the forum consist of representatives from various NGOs as well as religious bodies such as Muhammadiyah and the Communion of Churches in Indonesia.
He said the consultations are also expected to provide input for the upcoming International Conference on Population and Development scheduled for September in Cairo, an event which President Soeharto is expected to attend.
In the conference, Indonesia will mobilize support for the male-female partnership on an equal basis, a concept that goes further than simply the promotion of women's rights or the elimination of sexual discrimination.
Indonesia will also be pushing for its definition of a family as one which fits the Indonesian norms of a prosperous family, meaning that it must also be able to strengthen national development, provide prosperity as well as spiritual and physical security to its members, he said.
"There is a difference in the Indonesian definition of family and other countries', such as those in the Western world. For some of them, a family can be defined as one parent and children, or a homosexual couple and children.... we don't abide by that definition," Haryono said.(pwn)