In schools around Jakarta, Indonesia, students, teachers and families are rolling up their sleeves and are learning about good health and nutrition by growing their own organic vegetables. Our school gardening activity is a recent activity that is being incorporated into our larger School Health & Nutrition program.

Our program trains teachers to teach nutrition and health to children, combining classroom learning with age-appropriate, fun academic exercises. We also provide a hands-on garden activity, so children learn how to plant, care for and harvest the organic vegetables in the school garden. They are rewarded for their hard work with a healthy breakfast at each school made with the vegetables they have grown themselves. They also learn how to choose and prepare nutritious meals.

Garden-based learning (GBL) is an instructional strategy that utilizes the garden as a teaching tool. It provides an opportunity for practical instruction in science, math and the environment, while teaching children to follow directions and work together in a team. The program’s impact is felt beyond the school. A local community outreach effort directly engages mothers of students and other women from the wider community through a series of free sessions that teach them how to plant, maintain and harvest their organic vegetables at home. They are instructed about specific methods for a home vegetable garden, basic health and nutrition and ways to choose nutritious food and prepare meals for their families.

(Jakarta September 19 -21, 2011) Uplift International conducted a national conference and a two-day workshop in Jakarta, on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) for Women’s Health. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is the process by which policy is implemented with a gender integrated approach. GRB goes beyond conventional policy analysis to check what money is allocated to implement the policy, whether this money is spent as allocated, whom it reaches, and how/whether it changes the gender patterns in the society. This, of course, relies on gender-relevant data.

Women’s health is directly related to resources available for health services. GRB provides a critical process for analyzing the gaps between policy and reality for women’s health services.

The conference brought together stakeholders which included government representatives from National and district levels and our six partner local NGOs to discuss leading issues around health-focused GRB and formulate recommendations for follow up activities. The follow-on workshop held for our six NGO network partners focused on technical skill building in GRB analysis and advocacy in women’s health for GRB.

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The Need for a Rights-Based Approach

Huge sums of money are spent annually to improve the health of vulnerable populations. Yet, many of these people are unable to access the funded health programs and other health services because of discrimination, inequality and inadequate infrastructure. Outright discrimination or inadvertent neglect by doctors, government clinics, lawyers and policymakers, or even an uninformed media, prevent vulnerable groups from receiving the information and services they so desperately need. As a result, their serious physical and mental health problems go untreated. Learn More

Learn more about our School Health and Nutrition Program in Indonesia