PORTALJABAR, DISTRICT. GARUT - The Garut Regency Population Control, Family Planning, Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (DPPKBPPPA) Service held a Coordination Meeting (rakor) of the Stunting Reduction Acceleration Team (TPPS) in the Garut DPPKBPPPA Hall, Tuesday (5/4/2023). The Head of the Garut DPPKBPPPA, Yayan Waryana, emphasized the importance of changing community behavior in overcoming stunting so they can live healthier lives.

"Fulfilling healthy, nutritious food, continuing habits and customs can form a mindset so they can wake up," said Yayan after leading the coordination meeting.

Yayan added that the community must be more independent and not just wait for assistance in providing additional food (PMT). In this case, his party only provides advocacy, outreach and understanding regarding behavior change so that people can develop themselves so that they can avoid and escape the condition of stunting.

"Well, that's probably what we all always get together for. Not just this time, this coordination meeting is a meeting to evaluate," he continued.

Head of Public Health (Kesmas) Garut Health Service, dr. Tri Cahyo Nugroho, conveyed the achievement of the Anugerah Stunting Award from the West Java Provincial Government by winning the third best award in Convergence Action and the second best for Stunting Reduction Innovation.

"As for our stunting condition today, we also received appreciation for fiscal incentives from the central government, in Garut Regency it was allocated for PMT for stunted toddlers. And today we have distributed it to community health centers and yesterday I saw the Regent also distributing it in the southern regions," said Dr. Tri.

His party has also carried out measurements and weighing this year, resulting in a stunting rate in Garut Regency of around 11.8%. However, we are currently still waiting for the results of the SSGI (Indonesian Nutrition Status Survey) release from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia.

He explained that the Garut Regency Government had made several efforts to deal with stunting, including specific interventions and sensitive interventions, where, it carried out specific intervention efforts by implementing several programs, namely Ensuring All Pregnant Women Are Served (MELANI), Healthy Teenage Girls Free from Anemia ( RISSA), and Find, Treat, Love, Stunting Toddlers (TOSS).

"TOSS stunting, we talk about giving additional food, finding medicine, caring for stunted toddlers, but in it we also talk about education about exclusive breastfeeding, we also educate about giving complementary breast milk and of course we also talk about PHBS. We also talk about STBM," he said.

He hopes that with this activity, all stunting problems in Garut Regency can be identified and solved, so that they can find effective solutions for handling stunting in Garut Regency.

"Hopefully this meeting will produce very valuable evaluations for 2024 and the years to come," he said.

Head of the Garut DPPKBPPPA Child Protection Division, Budi Kusmawan, revealed that this coordination meeting was an implementation of the BKKBN Special Allocation Fund (DAK). Evaluation of activities to accelerate stunting reduction was carried out, reaching 90% implementation. The next step is to hold a coordination meeting in December to complete the 8 Convergence Actions.

Budi explained that the coordination meeting discussed evaluations related to activities to accelerate stunting reduction in each SKPD, which had been planned for early 2023.

"Almost 90% of activities related to accelerating stunting reduction have been implemented, both in sub-districts or local villages and activities to accelerate stunting reduction in general in Garut Regency," he said.

After this coordination meeting, the party will hold another coordination meeting in the third week of December, in order to completely fill in the 8 Convergence Actions in the Bangda Action application belonging to the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia (Kemendagri).

"In addition to implementation in the field, we will also target 100% reporting, Insha Allah. Insha Allah, we will also invite sub-district heads and village heads, who are the locus for accelerating stunting reduction in 2023," he concluded.