She has fulfilled the commitment to provide exclusive breast milk for Helmi up to the age of six months, and now he is still breastfed accompanied with supplementary food until Helmi reaches the age of two.

"As a benefit of being active as a cadre, I have come to a far greater understanding and conviction on the importance of maintaining the child health as from the womb," she said. Eklomina's involvement as one of the cadres of the Bunga Nyiur Posyandu (Village Integrated Health Post) in Baumata Village which is at the distance of 13 km from Kupang Municipality, East Nusa Tenggara has helped her understand more about the importance of breast milk as the basic capital for the growth and health of children.

Imperceptibly, it has been thirteen years that she has devoted herself tirelessly as a cadre even without any compensation. The dream to see the children in her village growing healthy and smart has motivated this mother of four children - half of which are still under five - to try hard to allocate her energy and time properly so she can still nurture her family and help her husband in the field without leaving the calling to faithfully serve and share her knowledge to other parents.

Looking back to the first time when she assumed the duty as a cadre, Eklomina had once felt unconfident. All the more when she had to provide counseling to mothers who have higher education and social status.

However, due to the assistance and training provided since 1997 by World Vision Indonesia and its partner Wahana Visi Indonesia, now Eklomina who is only a graduate of primary school, has not only been very skillful in child health and nutrition but also has felt more confident. Eklomina has become a person who dares to state her opinion in front of the public.

With great conviction, she motivates other cadres so they can provide counseling with confidence. Eklomina also does not forget to actively invite other mothers to serve as posyandu cadres so they can advance the children of East Nusa Tenggara and themselves.

Fortunately, Eklomina's efforts obtained supports from various parties, including her husband and the Head of Baumata Village.

At the moment, 50 mothers have benefited from the Bunga Nyiur Posyandu. In fact, they voluntarily collect monthly contribution of five hundred rupiah per person.

It is true that East Nusa Tenggara is nowadays recorded as one of the provinces with the highest under five and maternal mortality rate in Indonesia. Poor nutrition also becomes one of the biggest challenges encountered by the children in East Nusa Tenggara. The global data indicates that 50%-60% of infant and under five mortality is related to the nutrition issues. The 2007 National Basic Health Research indicated that East Nusa Tenggara province was one of the provinces with the highest percentage of children under five suffering from malnutrition (based on weight per age) in Indonesia, that stood at 33.6%.

The attempt to decrease the under five mortality rate is not sufficient to only be conducted by sending health workers to the villages, but such attempt needs to be accompanied with the attempt of empowering, assisting, supporting, and strengthening the local community to be able to serve as cadres and educators for fellow residents as the spearhead for the changes of mindset and behavior in valuing health. Hope emerges from the enthusiasm shown by cadres such as Eklomina. It is through the face expression and sincere willingness like Eklomina that we reverberate the continuity of life of the future generation of this nation.

There is a great expectation that the real work shown by concerned individuals such as Eklomina could motivate other individuals, thus creating a common movement to suppress and overcome the rate of malnutrition cases in this region. Well-functioning posyandu could better monitor the nutritional status of every children and children under five in the East Nusa Tenggara region who access the posyandu.

The existence of the Bunga Nyiur Posyandu has indeed played very significant role in ensuring the survival of children in Baumata Village. Through the monitoring the child's weight and height in the Road to Health Card (Kartu Menuju Sehat), immunization service, basic information on basic diet and balanced healthy activities supporting the child growth and development both physically and mentally, the cadres and health officers at the Bunga Nyiur Posyandu as well as in other posyandus in Indonesia could keep fighting to save the lives of children and mothers from various causes of preventable deaths.

Eklomina and her cadre friends do. How about you?