Following the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between SEAMEO RECFON and the Government of Ogan Komering Ulu (OKU) District on 9 December 2021, SEAMEO RECFON organized a training for Master of Trainers (MOT) on the use of parenting sessions to introduce the concept of holistic integrative early childhood development on 12 – 15 September 2022 for 12 key local officials.
The training participants came from various OKU District government offices on health, education, and women empowerment and child protection. This training was also participated in by representatives from a local early childhood education (ECE) centre (TK Negeri Pembina 7) and a community-based organization (LKP New ELIA English Course) as well as Mrs. Zwesti Karenia Teddy as the Head of Family Welfare Empowerement team (Tim Penggerak PKK) of OKU District who has an important role in implementing the ECCNE Program there.
The training aimed to increase the knowledge and skills of the participants to train ECE educators for parenting sessions in areas of Holistic and Integrative Early Childhood Development (HI-ECD), including child caring and education, child nutrition and health, and child protection and welfare. The training also provided the participants with the guidelines on early childhood development program implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
During the opening speech, the OKU District Head, Mr. Teddy Meilwansyah, S.STP, M.M, M.Pd, shared their various innovations in reducing the prevalence of stunting including the provision of community health post for adolescents by the health office and healthy supplementary food for children managed by the education office. Because of these efforts, OKU was awarded the 2nd best district in South Sumatera by the Ministry of Home Affairs for their convergent action on reducing stunting. He also expressed his intention to accelerate the reduction of the stunting prevalence in OKU district by optimizing the knowledge and skills that the participants would gain from the training.
The training used various methods delivered by experts such as Prof. Dr. Netti Herawati, M.Si (HIMPAUDI), Dr. Risatianti Kolopaking, M.Si,Psikolog (UIN Syarif Hidayatullah), dr. Grace Wangge, PhD (Monash University), and Irwan Gunawan, M.Pd (Indonesia Creative Education Institute), including SEAMEO RECFON’s certified trainers such as Dr Umi Fahmida, Dr. Dwi Nastiti Iswarawanti, Indriya Laras Pramesthi M.Gizi, and facilitated by Aisyah Nurcita M.Gizi and Khalida Fauzia M.Gizi. As requested by the participants, the training included a lecture on gardening which was delivered by Risa Rosita M.Si from SEAMEO BIOTROP.
As ECCNE master trainers of OKU District , each participant was required to present a topic during the microteaching session. Participants used different interactive teaching methods such as videos, songs, and role plays to stimulate engagement with the audiences.
In closing the training, SEAMEO RECFON Director Prof. Dr. Muchtaruddin Mansyur, PhD encouraged the participants to immediately organize a Training of the trainers (TOT) among ECE teachers upon returning to their work stations in OKU District. He thanked the participants in coming up with action plans and emphasized the urgency of implementing them to contribute to the district’s stunting reduction program. He also encouraged the participants to report the training results to the OKU District Head to gain his support to implement their action plans. Prof Muchtar assured the participants of SEAMEO RECFON’s support to assist in the implementation of their action plan to achieve “OKU zero stunting”.
