Healthy Breakfast for My Kids

The growth and development of a child are strongly influenced by nutritional intake. Children will grow according to their development if they get a nutritious and balanced intake. Meanwhile, if the child does not receive good nutrition, the child will not grow according to his development or even get sick easily. Unfortunately, during the Covid-19 pandemic, many families experienced economic difficulties, making it difficult to meet the nutritional needs of families, especially children.

Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) Surabaya Program Area, together with the GROW project, provides balanced nutritious food to support children in Simolawang village. The project, which started from December 2020 to September 2021, provided benefits to 502 children aged 7-9 years. Through the GROW project, children can at least enjoy a nutritionally balanced breakfast three times a week.

In addition to the distribution of breakfast, the GROW project also conducts training on how to cook food (breakfast) that is nutritionally balanced for children using local ingredients that are easily available and affordable for parents and cadres. In this cooking training, the GROW project collaborates with one of the influencers, Maya Mevliyanti.

Rofiasih, one of the parents whose children get breakfast said that all this time she thought that a balanced nutritious diet should be made of expensive ingredients. However, from the training, she gained new knowledge that balanced nutritious food does not have to be expensive, such as fish, tempeh, eggs, vegetables, and cut fruit.

Likewise with Soejanti (45), as a cadre, he has been giving breakfast to children only with rice and side dishes. Rarely add vegetables, because the process is quite long and sometimes children don't like it.

“I used to give the children breakfast that was easy and quick to make, such as fried rice with eggs or instant noodles with only eggs. I rarely give vegetables. However, from the cooking training with GROW yesterday, I learned that making a nutritionally balanced breakfast must meet 4 stars such as rice, side dishes, and don't forget vegetables, fruit, and nuts," said Soejanti.

After conducting the training, the GROW project organized a competition to make a balanced nutritious breakfast for parents and cadres. As the judges for this breakfast-making competition, Maya Mevliyanti (cooking coach) and Mara Mawari, and Lauren from nutritionists at Simolawang Health Center.

Soejanti who took part in the competition finally became the first winner.

“It feels good to be the champion of this healthy breakfast-making competition. However, the most fun thing is that I can now provide healthy food for my children at home,” she said happily.

Written by: Nuzly Hudaya, Field Facilitator Area Program Simokerto Wahana Visi Indonesia