Some children living in different places in the world are sometimes unfortunate that they are unable to consume healthy and nutritious food.

This problem may occur due to both external and internal factors. The external factor involves economic limitation of the family that they are unable to provide enough money for the family to buy food. Whereas the internal factor comes from the children themselves which sometimes psychologically appears as eating problem.

The fact encouraged PT DAHANA (Persero) to be more concerned about the health of children living in the company’s surrounding area. The national explosives company held a social event in the form of providing nutritious supplemental food for children under the age of five living in the village of Sadawarna, Cibogo, Subang. The event took place on 27th August 2014 at Bale Dahana building and attracted hundreds of enthusiastic mothers with their children.

Lelly Sosidhalia, Head of DAHANA’s Community Development Partnership Program (PKBL) explained that there were 455 children participating in this year’s social event. They came from 7 posyandus or Integrated Services Posts spread in Sadawarna. The term posyandu itself is used to describe center(s) for pre- and postnatal health care and information for women and children under five. Aside from distributing nutritious food, the mothers also came to check their children’s health and receive free medications for their kids.

“At this social event, we involved cadres of posyandus to coordinate with mothers living in the surrounding area (of the posyandus). We also partnered with Cibogo Community Health Clinic (Puskesmas) to provide child check up and medications,” Lelly stated.

Furthermore, Lelly explained that the social event was a form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in developing the community living in DAHANA’s surrounding area, particularly in the health sector. This event was also part of a series in celebrating PT DAHANA (Persero)’s 48th birthday on October 22, 2014.

“Every year we always organize a social event for charity in the health sector to celebrate DAHANA’s birthday. This year we prioritize the act of providing nutritious supplemental food for children under 5. The main consideration was that kids under the age of 5 needed healthy and nutritious food for their health and brain development. We hope that by organizing an event like this, mothers would be able to keep paying attention to their children’s health. Dahana itself can only provide a little stimulation to the community to keep maintaining their health,” Lelly furthermore explained.

This event also received positive respond from Head of Cibogo’s Community Health Clinic, dr. Wahyuni Suci Wulandari. She appreciated what Dahana had done and also hoped that other companies would follow Dahana’s steps. The act of providing nutritious food for children and also free health check up and medication was one of the ways to bring community awareness of the importance of caring for their family’s health. Many of the mothers there were willing to consult the doctor about their children’s condition.

“By organizing this kind of event, they were finally willing to check their children’s health and consult the doctor. Those with severe illness were immediately referred to the nearest community health clinics or hospital to receive further examination and medication. Based on the check up carried out in the event, we found lots of children who were actually suffering from Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) and flu caused by the weather condition,” dr. Wahyuni said.

The posyandu cadres themselves thought that this event was very useful in helping them control the mothers and children’s health. Head of Posyandu Nusa Indah 5 revealed that there were 80 children under 5 in her neighborhood, but some of their mothers were still reluctant to bring their children to the posyandu. By organizing this event, they were willing to come and have their children examined. The children also received nutritious food supplement such as milk, baby porridge, agar-agar (jelly made from seaweed), biscuits, fruit, and vitamin tablets. Alhamdulillah, the mothers and their kids living in our surrounding posyandu all came here,” Ikom commented.

This year, the nutritious food aid program were only targeted to reach 500 children under five living in the district of Cibogo. Lelly said that next year’s target would be to reach not only one, but several districts in the Subang region. (*)