Sumatra Healthy Schools Program Baseline Assessment

Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is implementing a school-based program in Sumatra to promote healthy diets, health and hygiene for schoolchildren and encouraging the replication of project successes in other school programs in Indonesia.

An integral part of this project is distributing fortified soy milk and deworming pills and changing eating and hygiene behaviors of 170,000 students and teachers in elementary schools and madrassas in Sumatra, as well as implementing complementary water, sanitation and hygiene-related activities at the target schools.

In June through August of 2005, Mercy Corps conducted a baseline survey of its target population within four provinces of Sumatra (West Sumatra, Riau, Bengkulu and Lampung). The purpose of the baseline survey was to collect information and data from the target population in order to measure their health status over time, assess how project interventions impact the health of the target population and inform Mercy Corps' project implementation and future interventions.

Mercy Corps' baseline survey focused on three priority health indicators: anemia, parasite infection (specifically soil-transmitted helminthes worms) and nutritional status using anthropometric measurements. These three groups of indicators were chosen because malnutrition and parasite infection can adversely affect the physical and mental development and health of children, thus impairing students' ability to learn and grow at healthy rates.