Food for thought: Avoiding a 'lost generation'
Ida Indawati Khouw and Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Street singer Ropah is mother to Ida, 5, Saripah, 3, and Yuliana, three months old. Since her husband is unemployed, she bears the weight of supporting her family, earning a daily income of Rp 5,000 (50 U.S. cents).
Living beside the railway track between Sawah Besar and Mangga Besar stations, Ropah's children do not get enough to eat. In medical terms, they are undernourished.
"I usually buy nasi bungkus (rice accompanied by fried tofu, tempeh and vegetables) for Rp 3,000 and split it three ways for my husband, myself and the kids," she told The Jakarta Post.
Ropah and her husband eat once a day to ensure their kids eat more. Ropah also breast-feeds Yuliana.
"When I don't get enough money, I simply just buy rice and eat it with salt."
The economic crisis that hit in mid-1997 has burdened the family. Before the crisis, Ropah's husband managed to bring home extra money. The cost of living was much cheaper then, and the family was able to have decent meals.
"We used to have at least an egg or fish in our daily menu," she said.
Ropah is not alone.
Her neighbor Dariah, 30, also has to struggle to stay alive.
Dariah relies on her husband's paltry income to feed their children Nurdin, 7, Neneng, 5, and Syarifudin, 11 months.
Her husband, Udin, sells secondhand goods in the Karang Anyar market and earns Rp 10,000 per day.
The money is enough to provide a meal of rice, tempeh, tofu and vegetables twice a day without any variation.
Dariah breast-feeds Syarifudin and gives him rice porridge with a bit of kecap (soya sauce).
Syarifudin only weighs six kilograms, far below the standard of 10 kg for his age. His scrawny body can hardly support his head. His motor skills are also far below those of well-fed babies of the same age. He sits weakly in his mother's lap most of the time.
If they are not helped, these children may become part of the "lost generation" that experts have constantly warned us about. The theme for this year's World Food Day, Fight Hunger to Reduce Poverty, is particularly appropriate for Indonesia.
The Helen Keller International Indonesia (HKI) deputy country director, Roy Tjiong, said that a great number of Indonesia's children were predicted to have a low intellectual capacity and stunted growth in the future due to undernourishment.
"The children's condition is worsened by the fact that the parents must buy everything, including clean water, for their daily needs. Living in a slum area, they don't have a safety net at all, including a place for a home garden (to meet their nutritional needs)," he said.
High levels of acute malnutrition are usually only found in emergency or disaster conditions, and indicate that there is a very serious lack of food at the household level, according to a report from a World Health Organization expert committee.
But what kind of hunger is suffered by Indonesians?
Roy said the malnutrition problem here was not in the quantity of food intake but the quality, as the poor will reduce the intake of micronutrient-rich foods (such as milk, eggs and meat) due to the increase in prices and their decreased purchasing power after the crisis.
"Poor families still prefer to consume rice -- thinking they will be full -- but they reduce side dishes, including meat, which is needed for the development of children between six months and 23 months," he said.
The condition results in a "hidden hunger", due to deficiencies in micronutrients of vitamins, trace elements (such as iron) and essential fatty acids.
It will not take long to see the negative impact.
Roy said more than 65 percent of children under two years old in the country were affected with anemia, which impairs the immune system and reduces physical and mental capacity.
Efforts are being made by worldwide donors, as well as local organizations, to prevent this generation from suffering this needless tragedy.
Last January, the UN-sponsored World Food Program (WFP) launched a new fortified food intervention program by selling sachets of a soya-blended dietary supplement with enriched vitamins and minerals called Delvita for children aged six months to 24 months old for Rp 100 each.
"We will allocate 300 tons of Delvita every year, distributed through mothers who join the monthly training on nutrition education," said Philip J. Clarke, the WFP representative here.
He said it was a shocking fact that 60 percent of deaths occurring in children under five years of age could be explained by malnutrition.
Reports show that cases of malnutrition have increased sharply. Malnutrition now kills 450 preschool children every day or 170,000 every year.
The Delvita program, which concentrates on Greater Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya, aims to reach 70,000 mothers and children.
"Due to mothers' lack of knowledge on the proper food for children, we offer education on nutrition to them with the help of local non-governmental organizations," Clarke said.
The bimonthly sessions provide health and nutrition education and counseling, and also serve to monitor the growth of children.
The WFP has distributed annual donations worth US$60 million to Indonesia in the form of food, especially rice, to help the country solve its hunger problem.
All of the efforts are to prevent the much-feared "lost generation" from becoming a reality.