07 February 2024

Building a Future: Early Childhood Development Transforms Lives in Remote Communities

Four-year-old Sultan Alfarizki smiles with joy as he proudly shows off his paper adorned with a picture of a bird, meticulously created using dried leaf fragments. Sultan looks around for his father, Wahyu Martono, who sits among other parents in the yard at the Pembina Public Early Childhood Development (ECD) cen...
31 December 2020

New Year’s Babies: Over 370,000 children will be born worldwide on New Year’s Day - UNICEF

NEW YORK, 1 January 2021, –, An estimated 371,504 babies will be born around the world on New Year’s Day, according to UNICEF. As the calendar turns to 2021, UNICEF is again celebrating the new lives being brought into the world on January 1. Fiji in the Pacific will welcome 2021’s first baby. The United States wi...
24 June 2020

The State of Children in Indonesia

Indonesia’s social and economic development has been both remarkable and rapid. Unlike the many countries with aging populations and workforces, a full two thirds of Indonesia’s population is of ‘productive age’ (15–64 years old). This large productive-age population can be a powerful engine for development – a ‘d...
01 January 2020

New Year’s Babies: Over 13,000 children will be born in Indonesia on New Year’s Day - UNICEF

Jakarta, 1 January 2020, –, An estimated 13,020 babies will be born in 2020 on New Year’s Day, UNICEF said today. Indonesian babies will account for 3,32 per cent of the estimated 392,078 babies to be born on New Year’s Day. “The beginning of a new year and a new decade is an opportunity to reflect on our hopes an...
05 December 2019

In West Papua, a teacher’s determination keeps her school open for students

SORONG, WEST PAPUA PROVINCE, INDONESIA , – In her 24 years managing the TK Intimpura, Yohanna Bitti Tupen has seen significant change in her village of Maibo. The kindergarten, which was built by a logging company that employed dozens of families in the community, used to welcome 45 students. After the company clo...
01 November 2019

Reflections on CRC Article 31

Eat, play, love. The three things they say children need the most. They say food is key, you are what you eat. They say our brain needs food, it’s the first of our organs to absorb nutrients from what we eat. They say the ways that the brain develops during the first 1,000 days of life are the bedrock to our futur...
29 October 2019

Reflections on CRC Article 18

It usually starts with a simple wish: you want a baby. And you got one. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes it is unsought and unplanned. Sometimes it’s born out of a want so strong, involving a lot of planning and sacrifice—physically, emotionally and financially. There’s all the hope and all the misery and all ...
03 June 2019

Teaching Parents the Power of Play

EAST NUSA TENGGARA, Indonesia, - In a small bamboo classroom in the rural mountainous village of Bikoen, a group of parents huddle around Fandro, 6, as he attempts to solve a geometric puzzle. “Take number 1 and follow the line to put it in the correct shape,” says Alfaksat Haumeni, 45, as he guides Fandro to pla...