youth participation in building a healthy nation

HEALTH is the most important capital in building a nation. You can imagine how difficult it would be to carry out various development programs if the technical implementers of development (in this case the youth) were in an unhealthy condition. Health itself includes two important components, namely psychological health (mental) and physical health (body). Therefore, these two components of health must be considered carefully from an early age. The soul of the younger generation must always be filled with religious and educational values. Meanwhile, the body is also filled with good nutrition so that it can grow into a strong and healthy young generation.
   

63 years of independence, if we look closely at the problems of physical health, it turns out that we still have quite a lot to fix. An example is the emergence of news about toddlers with malnutrition. People's lifestyles that do not pay attention to health aspects, especially environmental health (common health). Many suburban areas are not included in the classification of underdeveloped villages because if you look around them, various public facilities are very well built, but the lifestyle of the people is still far from the ideal concept of health. For example in terms of waste management that cannot be decomposed by microbes such as plastic waste, which is disposed of (stacked up) on vacant land in the middle of settlements. In fact, plastic waste and used cans are a very effective place for the development of various types of mosquitoes (dengue mosquitoes, etc.) apart from the smell and unpleasant sight they produce. Many of our people are misguided in understanding waste. Every morning and evening, leaf litter is cleaned and burned. In fact, leaf and tree branch waste is a type of waste that can be decomposed by microbes in a fast time. The leaves that fall around the tree, dry and decompose naturally can be directly used by the tree (as organic fertilizer). The funny thing is, our society actually tries to get rid of this organic waste for reasons of cleanliness and aesthetics, while plastic waste and other non-biodegradable waste is actually "conserved."

Here, it is hoped that the maximum participation of youths will be involved in maintaining the cleanliness of their environment, especially from the accumulation of garbage that is not friendly to nature. Young people can help provide understanding to the community to be more responsible towards waste management of this type. More technically, through various youth organizations at the village/hamlet level, youth can organize the collection of the trash and then the plastic/can cans can be sold to a waste recycling site and the money from the sale of the waste can be used for various youth activities. Let us calculate how much benefit can be drawn from participation in this aspect. If only each household produced 1/2 kilogram of plastic waste and canned waste, then within one month at least each household would produce + 15 kilograms of non-organic waste. If in a hamlet inhabited by 500 heads of families...? We can calculate how much waste is generated. And in the long term (months) there will be a large scale accumulation of waste.

 

Next, what really needs to be considered and youth can contribute by taking an active role in improving bad habits and lifestyles, namely the community's habit of unhealthy defecating (BAB = defecation). For example, defecating in the river or teaching toddlers to defecate in the ditches in front of residents' houses. Whereas ditches or ditches function to distribute rainwater to the disposal site. If every day children under five defecate in the gutters of the house, when it rains, the various bacteria and viruses contained in the feces will spread everywhere. CHAPTER with a paradigm like this, will allow the emergence of widespread disease. What is popular is of course fecal-oral transmitted diseases such as diarrhea, which can even cause epidemics.

 

For this reason, young people in particular must make various efforts to awaken people who still adhere to this pattern so they can stop their bad habits. Bathrooms and WCs which are generally owned by every house or public bathrooms that have been provided a lot, should not just be used as home decoration, but must be utilized to the fullest. Communities must continue to be given an understanding that defecating in the bathroom is one of the most appropriate steps to maintain environmental health.

 

If we examine further, actually there are so many strategic roles for youth to build the nation into a healthy nation. For example, by conducting a campaign for young mothers to have their children checked regularly at the nearest posyandu. Young people can also organize young children to practice keeping their teeth healthy every day. Young people can also invite parents to be more active in managing their environment, such as adjusting the location of farms to residential areas, including urging parents who have a hobby of raising various poultry to really keep it clean to prevent the spread of the bird flu virus, for example. In this 63 years of independence, we hope that our nation, especially the younger generation, will become healthier. A healthy young generation will produce a strong nation. Hopefully this will happen. Wallahu A'lamu Bishawwab