Islamic Preachers Must Actively Support the Acceleration of Stunting Reduction

Jakarta, MINA – Indonesian Vice President K.H. Ma’ruf Amin, as the Chairperson of the Steering Committee for the Acceleration of Stunting Reduction, gave directions to Islamic preachers in Indonesia to participate in accelerating stunting reduction.

In his direction at the Vice President’s Palace on Thursday, he said that Islamic preachers have great and massive power in giving significant influence in changing people’s behavior through their roles and contributions as sources of knowledge (manbaul ‘ulum), educators ( murabbi), mover (muharrik), and role model (uswatun hasanah) for Indonesian and their communities.

The Vice President considered they had a strategic role in supporting efforts to accelerate stunting reduction.

“The involvement of Islamic preachers is very needed through sermons, lectures, and preach to invite the community to accelerate stunting reduction, such as by inviting people to adopt a healthy and clean lifestyle, urging mothers to be able to give exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months, emphasizing the importance of eating healthy foods, nutritious, and the need to take blood-added tablets, so that children under five are not stunted,” added the Vice President.

He also emphasized that a religious approach is very important to convey stunting reduction messages because the majority of Indonesian people are Muslims.

“Efforts to accelerate stunting reduction are noble steps to implement maqashid ash-shari’ah (objectives prescribed by Islam), especially hifdh an-nafs (life protection), hifdh al-‘aql (protection of the mind), and hifdh an-nasl (protection of offspring), so it becomes part of worship that must be practiced and preached to the public,” said the vice president.

Closing his directive, the Vice President conveyed five important things to Islamic preachers in reducing stunting, namely: first, inviting people to live healthy and clean lives; second, inviting the public to eat nutritious food, especially for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and infants under two years old; third, invite the community to do good family care for children; fourth, calling for the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months, complementary foods for breastfeeding after 6 months, consumption of blood-added tablets (TTD) for young women, prospective brides, and pregnant women; and lastly, educating the public that marriage must be carried out by couples who are of mature age, physically, psychologically, spiritually, and economically.

“I am optimistic that if these five messages are conveyed, Insya Allah, public awareness and concern for stunting will increase, so stunting cases in the community can be prevented and the stunting rate can be reduced significantly,” he concluded.(T/ri/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)