During this course, we have had to contact
different Early Educators from different parts of the world. I have not heard
from any of my contacts so for this blog, I have read UNICEF’s article about
childhood poverty in Indonesia.
From reading this article I learned many things. Some
of the things I learned are deficiencies, such as poor nutrition, are permanent
by the age of 24 months and have lifelong cognitive, physical and reproductive
repercussions for children.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child promises
every child the right to
a suitable living for their physical, mental, spiritual,
moral and social development and the right to the highest possible standard of
health. It also advocates children’s right to access information and for their
views to be heard. The impact of climate change is already and will continue to
affect how well those rights are fulfilled.
Without accounting for the climate change,
Indonesia has almost always struggled with high levels of malnutrition among
children and women of reproductive age, and it has among the highest out-migration
rates in South-East Asia. Nutrition and migration describe the essence of a child’s
health status and the degree of their social protection. They are determinants
of a child’s survival, of their physical, cognitive and social development and
of the foundations for realizing.
For Indonesia, poor maternal and child care
and feeding practices are the main cause of undernutrition in children and
women. Recent data have shown declining rates of exclusive breastfeeding (from
40 to 32 per cent between2003 and 2007), poor complementary feeding (only 41
per cent of children aged 6–23 months are fed as per the World Health
Organization
recommendations) and caring practices as well
as poor maternal nutrition (BPS, 2008). There is also little access to health services,
safe water and sanitation. This is compounded by high absolute poverty levels.
