Jakarta's urban poor: 15 family nutrition classes

Building a Foundation of Nutrition Knowledge

The previous report described the first cycle of the Nutrition course. The second cycle was conducted in the Fall (Sep-Nov 2025) at one partner preschool in Krendang. Over five sesesions, 16 participating parents learned about carbohydrates, protein, vegetable, water, and fruit – not just about its importance but also how to practically incorporate it into their families’ diets. The verbal feedback that we received from the participants was consistently positive. Quizes were administered before and after each session to assess change in knowledge. Results showed significant improvements in the average score, particularly for:

• Carbohydrates (from 50% to 87%)
• Protein (from 31% to 63%)
• Vegetables (from 42% to 67%)

There was a slight decrease in the average quiz score for the water topic which we will note for the next time we prepare to teach on water in the future.

UPH Collaboration: Cooking Demonstrations & Children's Activities

In line with our organizational value of collaboration, Bina Berdaya Bangsa forged a new partnership with Pelita Harapan University (UPH). We, together with UPH, conducted the session on fruit. Additionally, UPH conducted cooking demonstrations for 15 parents where the parents learned to make "vegetable balls" using an easy recipe that combines carbohydrates, protein, and vegetables. Children learned through playing activities about fruits and vegetables. One of the participating mothers said, "I never thought vegetables could be made so delicious, and this recipe is also cheap and easy."

Real Change Through Home Visits

As follow-up to the nutrition course, six families opted to participate in the series of home mentoring visits. We made a total of 21 visits among these families with the purpose of empowering parents to implement small but consistent changes in the way they parent, set their child’s daily routines, and shape their child’s eating habits. One of the strongest impacts that we saw was in Mrs. Hafizah’s child's sleep pattern and screen time on electronic devices:

• Bedtime shifted from 3am to 11pm.
• Daily screen time decreased from 5 hours to 3 hours 20 minutes
• Mrs. Hafizah's child began drawing and praying as alternatives.

“I learned to talk to my child without getting angry. It turns out that he can change if I'm consistent," said Mrs. Hafizah.  This change demonstrates that simple interventions can have a big impact when families are supported to parent more effectively. In addition, we provided tips and tools to equip parents to teach their kids on particular topics. One of the mothers, Mrs. Arsya, reported, “The flipbook made it easier for me to explain why vegetables are important, not just telling him to eat.“

Challenges

Sometimes there were challenges to participants fully learning the material due to their late arrival to sessions or due to distractions from children during sessions.  External factors also made it difficult for some families to implement changes at home on a consistent basis.  Lack of support from the father caused some mothers to quickly tire of trying to make changes. These challenges highlight some of the realities of underprivileged families in Krendang that should be addressed or taken into consideration in program design in the future.

Looking Ahead to 2026

After evaluating the Nutrition program in its totality, along with looking ahead to the future direction of Bina Berdaya Bangsa, we decided not to continue the Healthy Family Program after 2025. The main reasons are:

• Our focus is community empowerment, not long-term services that cannot be taken over by the community.
• Our partner schools have not yet demonstrated readiness to continue or integrate the program into the school’s activities and priorities.
• Without local commitment to the program, the sustainability of the program cannot be achieved.

Nonetheless, our relationships with the kindergarten schools in Krendang remain strong, keeping the door open for collaborations of a different form in the future. We are grateful for this year’s Nutrition Program families - for their dedication to engage and for the progress they made in enacting healthier lifestyles for their families for the long run. We remain committed to seeing community and social infrastructure strengthen and grow in Krendang. So stay tuned and journey with us in 2026 as we move forward in this vision with new approaches.

Links:

• Check out our website for the latest updates.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

We, Bina Beraya Bangsa, are excited to provide an update now that we are halfway through the project.  We abide by our philosophy of collaborating closely with community partners.  For the Nutrition courses, our community partners are the principals of the local kindergarten schools with whom we have had partnerships in the past.  Entering 2025, we had their enthusiastic endorsement and had planned to run the course once during the Spring semester (Jan-May) and then repeat for the Fall semester (Aug-Dec) with a new cohort of families.  However earlier this year due to various factors, two of the school principals were unsure there would be enough participants to secure the minimum number of participants to run the course.  Responding to their concerns, we decided to not run the course at those two schools.  We proceeded to run the course at the third school for the Spring semester.  Below are some highlights.

• 15 parents from different families registered for the course with an average attendance rate of 64%.
• There were five 1.5-hour sessions with each session focusing on one of the major food groups (carbohydrates, protein, fruit, vegetables, water) as well as one other topic (e.g. added salt, added sugar, processed foods, etc.)
• Each session was designed to be interactive. Participants watched a video together.  Key points from the video were reinforced through group discussions and educational games or demonstrations.
• Overall, participants answered 57% of the pre-session test questions correctly across all sessions indicating that participants possessed some knowledge before the course.  Post-session test results show a (19.5%) increase in participants' knowledge.  Knowledge increased significantly in the material related to the main biological functions of each food group.

Building up influencers on the inside

We met with each of the school principals throughout the duration of the course in order for us to stay updated in our understanding of the ever-changing school environment - the limitations and opportunities for the Nutrition course to synergize with existing school initiatives.  The long term vision of this Project is for the schools to be a place where nutrition education is actively implemented.

We consider participants as not only beneficiaries, but also potential key influencers in their wider community.  Hence, some of the activities aimed to equip and build participants’ confidence to share what they learned with their peers outside the course.  In addition, in January we trained a few participants to facilitate discussion in each session, reinforcing material using prompt cards.

At the end of each session, all participants filled out a feedback form giving us real time information on the effectiveness of the method and material according to the participants.  Feedback was consistently overwhelmingly positive. The trained volunteers were further invited to stay behind for a brief time of reflection guided by an activity report form that we filled out together with them.  At the end of the entire course, these trained volunteers gathered to reflect on the pre- and post- test data, provide feedback on the overall course, and help shape the next iteration of the Nutrition course.

Partnering with experts from the outside

While Bina Berdaya Bangsa solely focuses on Krendang, we recognize that other institutions outside Krendang have potential in contributing to Krendang’s welfare.  In 2024, we arranged for faculty and university students from Tarumanagara University to assess the physical health and psychological development of students from the three schools. In May 2025, we arranged for the same faculty to return to the three schools, present key findings from those assessments, teach parents about parenting styles, and inspire parents to effectively shape their child’s habits around eating and other lifestyle patterns.

Looking ahead: 

This month we are meeting individually with the school principals to determine whether the Nutrition course could be run for the Fall Semester.  At the time of this update, at least one school has confirmed the course will proceed for the Fall Semester.  This month we also continue to move forward with planning a series of home visits that will be offered to the families who participated in the Nutrition course to ensure that gains in understanding translates to real change in nutritional habits. Stay tuned to future report updates regarding the results of those home visits.  Will you join our efforts and those of the childhood schools in Krendang to ensure parents are empowered to shape their child’s healthy eating habits for thriving long-term?