The following is excerpted from the Church Newsroom. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
When Nofi Trisna Atmasari, who is three months pregnant, heard from her bishop at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that its global child nutrition effort was coming to Indonesia, she knew she wanted to join this program that focuses on pregnant mothers and children aged five and under. On September 28, 2024, she made the three-hour journey by bus from Yogyakarta, where she lives, to the Church’s Surakarta Stake Center to join the first nutritional screenings held for the effort.
She was not alone. Maria Endriani Wasitosari’s family boarded a minibus with their 10-month-old for a two-hour ride to the same stake center from Semarang. She had noticed that her daughter was “quite slim” and shorter than other children her age, causing her some worry and stress. But she would soon find support and solutions there.
Over two weekends in September and October, the highly anticipated child nutrition effort had its first intake of 90 children and four pregnant mothers in Jakarta, Surabaya, and Surakarta, Indonesia. The women and children’s initiative is a worldwide effort led by the Relief Society, the Church’s women’s organization. It has been implemented in Africa, Central America and the Philippines. Indonesia is the first country in the Church’s Asia Area to launch the multifaceted program, which aims to empower member families to prevent and relieve child malnutrition.
Malnutrition can adversely affect children physically and mentally in the long run. It can lead to stunting, which results in children having a low height for their age. Stunting is a priority concern of the Indonesian government, with its National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Prevention setting the goal of reducing stunting in young children to 14 percent of the population by 2024. For the initial intake, almost 70% of children screened by the Church were found to be at risk of malnutrition, or facing it moderately or severely.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.