Shauma, a 19 months old child in a village in West Java, was once categorized in risk of stunting, but her growth and development is improved due to collaborative efforts between parents, health cadres, local health facilities, and the program team from Save the Children and partner. This is her story.
“When I first met Shauma, if we gave her food, she would push it out of her mouth with her tongue,” recalled Deti, a Posyandu cadre who also monitored Shauma’s growth and development regularly.
Deti is one of eight Posyandu cadres in her village who received training from the BISA Program on Emotional Demonstration (Emo-Demo). This is an interactive communication method for behavior change, designed to improve Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices among pregnant women and caregivers of children under two. BISA, Better Investment for Stunting Alleviation, is a joint program between Save the Children and Nutrition International.
After implementing the Emo-Demo session, each cadre accompanied one family with children under two years old who was at risk of stunting. Deti visited Shauma and her mother every day in the first week of every month to ensure IYCF behavior change was practiced in the family.
“Cadres educate and assist the parents, starting from feeding practices, complementary food preparation, deciding daily menu, and so on. Every morning, cadres do home visits and help them if they have trouble in feeding their children,” said Deti.
Enden, Shauma’s mother, visited Posyandu regularly on monthly basis and participated Emo-Demo sessions. According to her, Emo-Demo made it easier for her to understand the importance of nutritious food for Shauma’s growth and development. However, there was another challenge. Shauma tends to have difficulty eating certain types of food, such as rice and vegetables. Deti suggested Enden to make the food looks more appealing, for example rice ball with minced vegetables. Enden also added eggs into Shauma’s daily menu.
As a result, Shauma would eat her food and slowly began to show improvement in her growth and development.
Deti believes that home visit is needed to encourage behavior changes happen after group session such as Emo-Demo conducted. Through home visit, cadres could capture a comprehensive of parenting situation and gave parent or caregiver opportunity to discuss the barrier they faced on adopting new behavior.
“Without home visit, it will definitely be difficult (to monitor and encourage behavior change),” said Deti. Deti and Enden’s success in supporting Shauma’s growth and development highlighted the power of collaboration between different parties in alleviating stunting through the alignment of behaviour change communication strategy and existing government programs.