We are delighted to share a blog written by Kelly Jullian, a student at British School Jakarta, Indonesia who is part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2018-19 Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 620 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community.
Project Overview
Through our project, we hope to be able to provide a solution for malnutrition and health issues prevalent within a large majority of Indonesia’s population. In doing research, we have found that more than 8.4 million Indonesian children suffer from chronic malnutrition. To add to that, 19.4 million Indonesians are unable to meet the minimum dietary requirements. We feel that a large part of this issue can be attributed to the clear lack of emphasis on nutrition within the Indonesian school system.
By working with a small community in a nearby Shantytown, we aim to provide a starting point for this solution and in doing so we hope to be able to foster a sustainable lifestyle. By the end of the year, we aim to provide food packs for families – which will include recipes and educational booklets on nutrition. We are also working towards starting a garden in the shantytown, which will hopefully allow the young children in the local school the opportunity to learn new skills and be more conscious of nutrition.
We will be focusing the majority of our time and resources into a family of 5 kids, by alleviating the existing financial burden that nutrition has on their family.
we hope to be able to provide a solution for malnutrition and health issues prevalent within a large majority of Indonesia’s population
Our Journey
We have recently met with an Environmentalist to discuss our plans for this project, which we found incredibly helpful in opening our eyes to the severity of this problem. We also met with a few of the family members and members of the shanty town.
We found that the family of 8 were living off of less than 10,000 IDR ($0.71 USD) worth of food a day.
Simple things like eating fruit or beef is a rarity and would only happen on special occasions. Before really getting into this project, we felt that we were incredibly sheltered from this issue. A lot of the times we see the statistics and we don’t register that this is the reality for a large number of people. We feel that this project has really opened our eyes to the extent of this problem, and we have been more conscious of our everyday habits. For example, we are generally more appreciative of the food and resources we have access to.
The biggest challenge for us has been the funding of this project. Last December, we took part in our school’s annual Christmas bazaar, where we sold products like water bottles, reusable straws and handkerchiefs in order to raise money for our project. The majority of that money has gone into funding the costs of obtaining documentation for the family we are helping. This is so they will be able to access basic health care provided by the government. Unfortunately, this means that we don’t have the funds to allow us to carry out other aspects of our project (Providing the food packs), so we are constantly looking for more fundraising opportunities to be able to help this community as best we can.
The Next Chapter
Over the next few months, we hope to be able to create more tangible outcomes for our products. We hope to start working with the kids in the local school, providing them with presentations and activities that will enrich their knowledge of nutrition. We are also aiming to get the community involved in building the garden and then taking care of the plants after. In doing so we hope to be able to strengthen community spirit and bring some greenery into the shantytown.
We understand that there is a limit to our reach. It is not possible for us to work with every single community in need of help, so by sharing this project, we hope to inspire others to take the initiative and consider what small things they could do to help the community around them.
The 2018-19 GSL Global Goals Competition is now open and runs until June 2019. If you belong to one of the 700+ teams of students currently delivering a social action project as part of the competition we would love to hear from you and feature your blog and project photos on our website to inspire others.
