“I’m courageous”: a social entrepreneurshipprogramme promoting a healthy diet inyoung Indonesian people

Ideas presentation gallery at the Saya
Pembarani Summit in Jakarta

By Cut Novianti Rachmi, Dhian Probhoyekti
Dipo, Eny Kurnia Sari, Lauren Blum, Aang
Sutrisna, Gusta Pratama and Wendy Gonzalez
Cut Novianti Rachmi has vast experience
conducting impact evaluations and using
a mixed-method approach for various
research topics. She is currently a seniorresearcher at Reconstra Utama Integra,
Jakarta, Indonesia.
Dhian Probhoyekti Dipo is Director of
Public Health Nutrition at the Ministry of
Health, Republic of Indonesia. She holds
a Master’s degree in health planningand policy from the University of Leeds,
UK and a doctoral degree in publichealth from the University of Indonesia.
Eny Kurnia Sari is a programmemanager for adolescent nutrition at the
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition(GAIN). She has over 12 years ofexperience managing rural and urban
development programmes for local andinternational non-governmental organisations.
Lauren Blum is a nutritional
anthropologist working for GAIN tocarry out qualitative evaluations ofprogrammes. She has extensive
experience conducting qualitative
research on maternal and child healthand nutrition and infectious disease in Africa and Asia.
Aang Sutrisna is Head of Programme of
GAIN Indonesia. In the last 15 years, he
has worked as a research, programmemonitoring and evaluation consultant
for various international institutions.
Gusta Trisna Pratama is a medical
doctor with a Master’s degree in
infection and immunology. As a
research associate at Reconstra Utama
Integra, he is involved in various
research projects.
Wendy Gonzalez is Senior Technical
Specialist at GAIN. She has experience
conducting implementation researchon nutrition programmes in Latin
America, East Africa and Southeast Asia.
We acknowledge the contribution of Zineb Félix, Yayasan
Ashoka Pembaharu Bagi Masyarakat and Dentsu
Indonesia in the design and implementation of Saya
Pemberani. We thank Ananda Partners for their researchguidance and Hafizah Jusril and Adila Saptari for theirresearch assistance. This programme was funded by the
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

36

INDONESIA
What this article is about: This article reflects on the opportunities
and challenges of using social entrepreneurship to engage young
people in promoting healthy diets.
Key messages:• Using the social entrepreneurship approach, the Saya Pemberani
programme aimed to engage young people living in urban areas toarticulate solutions to contextual problems that preclude healthy
diets through social media campaigns and mentorship activities.
• While social media was an effective channel to reach young
individuals in the programme areas, the participants preferred inperson mentorship sessions as a means to advance their ideas andreceive personalised advice.
• According to the participants, the mentorship programme helped
them to gain skills on leadership, teamwork, problem solving,
critical and creative thinking and communication. The participantsalso reported becoming more aware and knowledgeable about theimportance of, and challenges to, achieving healthy diets.

Healthy diets are a prerequisite toachieving the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) as they protect against
malnutrition in all its forms, as well as
noncommunicable diseases (IFPRI,
2016). Healthy diets are required to ensure that the 62 million young people
aged 15-29 years in Indonesia, representing 20% of the country’s population,
have adequate nutrition to reach theirfull potential and become productive
adults. However, survey data from 2018
showed that 32% of young people 15-24
years of age suffer from anaemia, while
16% of adolescents 13-15 years of age
are overweight or obese (National Institute of Health Research and Development Ministry of Health, 2019).

2014). With new technology accelerating
the exchange of information and ideas,
young people are able to engage in issues
they care about and organise themselvesto promote change in their societies.
Despite these opportunities, young people
face a range of barriers to making structural changes related to healthy diets including a lack of involvement in key
policy and political decision-making
processes affecting their lives (USAID,
2014). Young people are increasingly
demanding greater inclusion and meaningful engagement and are taking action
to address societal challenges including
through social entrepreneurship. Social
entrepreneurship aims to create value
or generate a positive change on society
by offering solutions to social challenges(United Nations, 2020).

Transforming food systems so thatthey provide safe, nutritious and affordable food and deliver on the SDGs by2030 requires action by all, including
young people (Glover & Sumberg, 2020)
who have the potential to become powerful forces for social change (USAID,

Using the social entrepreneurshipapproach, the Saya Pemberani programme (“I’m courageous” in Indonesian) aimed to engage young people living in urban areas in articulating solutions to contextual problems that preclude healthy diets. Teaming up with

Background

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the necessary skills for young people to clearly
articulate their ideas and bring them to life.

Figure 1 Saya Pemberani’s theory of change
Outputs• Communication
campaigns• Mentorshipprogrammes

Activities• Young people are
equipped withskills to formulate
ideas on socialchange for healthy
diets• Young people havebetter knowledge,
willingness andmotivation todevelop ideas forchange• Young people havesupport to develop
ideas for change

Ashoka, a non-profit organisation that fosters
social entrepreneurship, and in close collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Health,the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition(GAIN) designed and implemented the programme between April 2019 and June 2020 in
the city of Surabaya and the Jember district inEast Java, Indonesia. This article describes thedesign, implementation, key results and learningsof the Saya Pemberani programme and reflects
on the opportunities and challenges of usingsocial entrepreneurship to engage young people
in promoting healthy diets.

Designing and implementing
Saya Pemberani
Theory of change: Promoting
healthy diets through a social
entrepreneurship approach
We hypothesised that if we raised awareness ofand motivation for addressing barriers forhealthy diets, adolescents would feel encouraged
to take action and formulate ideas on socialchange for healthy diets. By engaging in Saya
Pemberani’s mentorship programme, adolescents would strengthen the skills needed to turnthese ideas into feasible, well-grounded proposals. By involving parents and teachers in thisprocess, the programme would create a supportive interpersonal environment conducive
for social change. In the long term, the implementation of these proposals would contributeto improving adolescents’ diets. (Figure 1).

Communications campaign:
Inviting youth to engage
Saya Pemberani was launched by implementing school workshops and a social media campaign. The communication campaign aimed
to raise awareness about the challenges thatyoung people in Indonesia face to eating
healthy diets and to transform the role of youth
in addressing the barriers to consuming nutritious foods. Through in-person events andthe use of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, the programme invited
young people to discuss these challenges and• Young people
implement their
proposals to
address societal
barriers forhaving healthy
diets

Impact• Young people
have healthierdiets

Outcomes

to generate ideas on social change for healthy
diets. In addition, it organised in-person eventswith parents and teachers to encourage theirsupport of young people with ideas about social change and to create a supportive interpersonal environment.

Mentorship sessions: Receiving
ideas and bringing them to life
The youth mentorship sessions sought to build

Young people aged 12-20 years were invited
to submit ideas on social change for healthy
diets to the programme’s online platform. In
total, 362 collective and individual submissions
were received, 78 of which were complete applications that included a brief problem description, the proposed solution and the potential
for impact and sustainability. The programme
recruited eight young individuals (five females
and three males) from Ashoka to conduct the
mentorship sessions. The mentors conducted afirst session with the selected participants to
help them to refine problem statements anddefine the steps needed to translate their ideas
into actions. Those who participated in school
workshops received in-person mentorship while
those reached via the social media campaign
received online mentorship.
Based on the participants’ engagement
during the mentorship sessions and how complete the submitted idea was, the mentors selected the top 45 ideas to receive a second
mentorship session. After the second session,
the participants developed a one minute video
presenting their refined ideas. These videos
were rated by the programme’s team based on
creativity, potential for impact and sustainability.
The masterminds behind the top 25 ideas participated in the ‘Do it, Grow it’ summit con-Box 1 Description of Saya Pemberani’s top three ideas
Idea #1 – “Food Investigatorinitiative” to improve food safety
Dina is a junior high school student in the small
village of Desa Selodakon in Jember, East Java.
Realising that many school canteens andmarkets in her village sold expired food, she andher team developed the “Food Investigatorinitiative” to raise awareness amongst students
and vendors about the importance of foodsafety, to educate vendors on practices thatwould ensure food safety and to inspect retailstores and school canteens to check for thepresence of expired food.
With support from school and local village
officials, the team implemented the Food
Investigator initiative in their neighbourhood. In
collaboration with the school student councils,
school principals and religious and local
community leaders, the team plans to expand theimplementation of the Food Investigator initiative
to surrounding areas. They also plan to offer it as
one of the extracurricular activities in schools andpromote it through social media. In the long term,
the team aims to influence local food and nutrition
policies to strengthen the enabling environment
to ensure the availability of safe foods.

Idea #2 – “Green garden” toincrease the availability of fresh
fruits and vegetables
Living in the diverse city of Surabaya, Andrew
noticed that some children had short stature for
their age and thin bodies. Linking these

problems to inadequate nutrition, Andrew
was motivated to improve the availability ofnutritious foods to help children grow andthrive. Andrew and his team, a group offriends motivated to improve nutrition, cameup with the BUJO (or Green Garden) idea
which invites neighbours to plant food crops
or vegetables in a public garden or designatedarea while implementing the concept of‘Plant-Grow-Harvest-Use/Sell-Recycle’. BUJO’s
long-term goal is to institutionalise thisinitiative so that people around the country
benefit from the increased availability of fruits
and vegetables in their communities.

Idea #3 – “Sister Health”: an app
to map food vendors
When Rizal was a freshman, he and his friends
experienced food poisoning after visiting foodvendors around their university campus. Rizal
discovered that most food vendors had low
sanitation standards, exacerbated by limitedaccess to clean water and poor waste
management. With his team, he developed
Sister Health, an android-based application
with a map of food vendors around thecampus who followed hygienic practices andsold nutritious food. The app contains various
features such as tips and tricks for healthyeating and a star-rating system for students toassess the hygiene of food vendors. In thelong term, the team plans to build a student
movement to improve food hygiene andsanitation around the university premises.

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ducted in Jakarta on 24 February 2020. During
this event, the programme team mentored theparticipants on leadership strengthening, teamwork, collaboration and communication skills.
After the ideas were presented to a select panelof judges consisting of youth innovators, communication experts and representatives from
GAIN, Ashoka and government institutions
with youth programmes including the Ministryof Health and the Ministry of Education, thetop three ideas received further mentoring
support to transform their ideas into wellgrounded, fundable proposals (Box 1).

Table 1

Characteristics of Saya Pemberani’s ideas
Completeapplications(n=78)

Top 45ideas(n=45)

Top 10ideas(n=10)

n

%

n

%

n

%

School workshop

65

83%

40

89%

9

90%

Social media and WhatsApp

13

17%

5

11%

1

10%

Junior High (13-15 years of age)

23

29%

14

31%

3

30%

Senior High (16-18 years of age)

35

45%

21

47%

3

30%

Saya Pemberani’s participants proposed innovative ideas for social change. Most of theseideas focused on developing nutritious foodand beverage products such as tempeh (traditional
Javanese food made from fermented soybeans)
ice cream, healthy burgers, vegetable snacks andfruit drinks. Other ideas involved creating community gardens, designing communication campaigns or mobile apps for nutrition education,
igniting a social movement around eating locally-produced foods and advocating for freeaccess to potable water in schools.

University students (>18 years of age)

14

18%

6

13%

2

20%

Other (13-18 years of age)

6

8%

4

9%

2

20%

Female lead

52

67%

30

67%

7

70%

Male lead

26

33%

15

33%

3

30%

Surabaya and surroundings

42

54%

25

56%

5

50%

Jember and surroundings

35

45%

19

42%

4

40%

Other areas

1

1%

1

2%

1

10%

Programme assessment

Programme fidelity

Reconstra (a research focused organisation), withguidance from Ananda partners (a social entrepreneurship organisation), conducted an independent process evaluation between March andDecember 2020. The study aimed to assess Saya
Pemberani’s reach (to what extent the programme reached its intended audience), fidelity(to what extent the programme components were
implemented as intended) and the participants’satisfaction (how the participants characterised
their engagement with Saya Pemberani).

The majority of Saya Pemberani’s activities were
implemented as planned although a few adjustments were made to accommodate thelarger than expected number of submissions.
For instance, the duration of the social media
campaign was shortened from 95 to 52 days
and participants were encouraged to collaborate and to merge similar ideas. Eight mentors
were assigned to conduct the sessions, four in
Surabaya and four in Jember. As planned, theyeach conducted three in-person and/or online
mentoring sessions.

In-depth semi-structured interviews wereconducted remotely with a purposive sample
of 58 individuals involved in Saya Pemberani.
The respondents included seven representativesof the organisations who led the programme
design and implementation (two respondents
from GAIN, three from Ashoka and two from
Dentsu), eight mentors, four jurors, four teachers,
nine parents (four out of the top 25 ideas, fiveout of the top 10 ideas) and 26 participants.

Results
Reach
Young people from different areas, age groups
and schools participated in the programme (seeTable 1). Through the school workshops, Saya
Pemberani reached 1,166 students and teachers
from 23 private and public schools. The social
media campaign generated 10,535 clicks to theprogramme’s website.
A total of 78 complete applications were
submitted by teams of young people. The
young people reached via school workshops
submitted more ideas and produced moreideas that advanced to the following rounds.
Students from the Santa Maria Junior andSenior High School in Surabaya submitted ahigh number of applications, 16 of which wereshortlisted to the top 45 ideas and three of
which made it to the top 10.

38

Reach (found out about the programme)Type of school

Sex

Area

In-person mentoring sessions were organisedin convenient settings for the participants including schools, libraries and coffee shops. The
sessions were held as group discussions andaimed to facilitate meaningful interactions
among the teams of youth participants. The
number of participants during each session waslarger than expected, especially during the firstsession. By the third session, each mentor managed between five and seven groups. Each mentoring session lasted for approximately 90-120
minutes. As complementary activities, online
webinar sessions on media and communication,
leadership skills and nutrition were led byexperts in these areas. In addition, the mentors
and participants engaged in frequent discussions
via WhatsApp groups and calls.

Participants’ satisfaction
According to the participants, the mentorshipprogramme helped them to gain skills on
leadership, teamwork, problem solving, criticaland creative thinking and communication. The
participants also reported becoming moreaware and knowledgeable about the importance of, and challenges to, achieving healthy
diets. Both the participants and mentors mentioned that engaging with Saya Pemberani
improved their food choices and intake ofnutritious foods.

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By the end of the programme, most teams
that participated in the three mentorship sessions
were able to articulate well-grounded proposals
for social change with a clear problem statement,
rationale, theory of change and defined targets.
However, both mentors and participants recommended extending the duration and intensityof the programme to further meet project goals.
Teams who did not advance to the final rounds,
but who were committed and motivated tobringing their ideas to life after the programme’s
completion, suggested that additional follow
up activities and opportunities for engagement
be made available. To promote the continuityof proposed actions, Saya Pemberani linked
the participants to Ashoka’s broader networkof individuals with social entrepreneurshipskills called the Kampung Pembaharu (villageof changemakers).
Young people faced various challenges toparticipating in the mentorship sessions andrefining their ideas including tight schedules,
academic obligations and other competing priorities. Aware of these challenges, the mentors
maintained flexibility in scheduling the inperson and remote discussions with the groups.

Lessons learned andrecommendations
The combination of offline and online activities
garnered attention and engaged a wide range ofparticipants including very young adolescents,
individuals living in peri-urban areas, with agreater number of girl participants. While social
media was an effective channel to reach young
individuals in the programme areas, the participants preferred in-person mentorship sessions
as a means to advance their ideas and receive
personalised advice. The participants valued engaging with mentors and peers during in-person
activities which highlights the importance of
creating social connections and promoting reallife interactions during this formative life stage.

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Saya Pemberani purposively targeted thosewith access to technology without initially considering the digital inequity of its target population. The participants from Surabaya andwealthier families had better connectivity andaccess to electronic devices which helped themto engage closely with the mentors and accessresources and tools to ‘fine tune’ their ideas.
The programme adapted to account for theseinequities, with both the mentors and judges
considering the participants’ access to resources
when supporting and evaluating the teams’
progress and ideas. Future initiatives should
assess if there are disparities in digital accessamong their target population and devise strategies to mitigate their impact on diverse programme participation and engagement.

Saya Pemberani’s participants identified andarticulated context-specific problems that interfere with or limit healthy eating. Refining
barriers to safe and healthy eating into problem
definitions was not a straightforward task as it
required the capacity to understand complex
ideas and to think abstractly. The participants
benefited from Saya Pemberani’s guidance on
problem definition which helped them to gaina better understanding of the nutrition situationin their cultural context. They followed a stepby-step problem articulation process by conducting a detailed root-cause analysis. By framing
the problem from their perspective and understanding, the participants were better equipped
to craft relevant solutions specific to their local
environment that resonated with their peers.

In addition to the digital inequity, the programme had to consider the age differences
between the participants. Younger adolescents
had trouble participating in group discussions
that were generally dominated by older individuals. While programmes can segment theirtarget population to include individuals ofsimilar age groups, there is value in bringing
people of different ages together, as they havedifferent perspectives and can learn from eachother (e.g., through mentorship sessions amongage groups). Programmes can facilitate more
inclusive and equitable participation by taking
age-specific needs and capabilities into accountand adopting recommended practices such as
using jargon-free language, being mindful ofthe power dynamics in the groups and safeguarding the rights of younger participants to
speak freely at any time (USAID, 2014).

The successful pursuit of social entrepreneurship is dependent on the confluence ofenabling factors and conditions. The Santa
Maria Junior and Senior High School, whichchampioned and supported Saya Pemberani,achieved a high number of applications; participants from this school mentioned teachersand parental support as key facilitators for
programme engagement. The participants also
reported that engaging with Ashoka’s larger
network of social entrepreneurs provided essential support, motivating them to continue
working on their ideas and to produce highquality proposals.

Conclusion and future
direction
Saya Pemberani helped the participants to gain
and reinforce leadership and transversal skills

such as complex problem solving, analyticalskills and creativity which prepare them to navigate both current and future challenges. The
programme helped to increase the participants’and mentors’ knowledge and motivation foreating healthy diets. While the programme generated an influx of creative and innovative ideas,
it also illuminated that young people need guidance and support to refine their proposals. A
phase-out strategy involving informal guidancefrom mentors or peers can help to ensure thatparticipants continue to receive support evenafter a programme reaches completion.
By adopting the social entrepreneurship approach, the programme sought to engage theparticipants as leaders (as opposed to partners
or contributors) who were responsible for developing the proposals from ideation to target
setting and planning for implementation. Saya
Pemberani played a facilitator role by providing
advice, creating links and opportunities to interact and exchange ideas and reinforcing theskills that enabled the participants to pursue
their own goals. The Food Investigator proposal
became the basis for a successfully funded
project aimed at developing a gaming application
to promote better food choices by adolescents,
marking a major accomplishment of the entrepreneurship approach.
Adopting a social entrepreneurship approach
can help to build relevant programmes for young
people. Future initiatives should devise strategies
to implement more diverse programme participation. Partnering with organisations that havewell-established relationships with their communities can help to engage young people fromdisadvantaged groups such as low-income populations and out-of-school individuals. Developing
strategies that engage parents, teachers and community leaders will better ensure the continuationof mentorship and support beyond the longevityof the programme and the sustainable engagementof young people in the design and implementationof activities related to healthy diets relevant toyounger populations.
For more information, please contact Wendy
Gonzalez at wgonzalez@gainhealth.org.

References
Glover, D and Sumberg, J (2020) Youth and Food
Systems Transformation. Frontiers in Sustainable Food
Systems, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.00101
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)(2016) The new challenge: End all forms of
malnutrition by 2030. Global Nutrition Report, IFPRI,
Washington D.C.
https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896295841_01
National Institute of Health Research andDevelopment Ministry of Health (2019) Indonesia Basic
Health Research (RISKEDAS). Ghdx.healthdata.org.
http://ghdx.healthdata.org/record/indonesia-basichealth-research-2018

Adolescents learn about
nutrition in Indonesia© World Vision

United Nations (2020) World Youth Report: Social
Entrepreneurship and the 2030 Agenda. Un.org.
https://www.un.org/development/desa/youth/worldyouth-report/wyr2020.html
USAID (2014) Youth engagement in development:
Effective approaches and action-oriented
recommendations for the field. Usaid.gov.
https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00JP6S.pdf

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