Dr Kacie Dickinson and Louisa Matwiejczyk AdvAPD have recently returned from a very successful 7-day visit to Indonesia in April. Accompanied by Clinical Placement Educators Kristy Burfield (TQEH) and Vivian Sloan (FMC) and Annabel Sweeney (Head of Nutrition Services, Women’s and Children’s Hospital), the purpose of the visit was to support 15 Fellows progress projects in country for the Australian Government funded Nutrition and Dietetics Australia Awards Fellowship entitled ‘Improving health by capacity building of the nutrition workforce in Jogjakarta (Indonesia).

Mentees are successfully progressing projects in the areas of paediatric and mental health food service, the establishment of a dietetic oncology outpatient clinic, establishment of student-led clinic and improving Dietetic student placement education and healthy eating and food safety in primary schools in the Sleman district of Yogyakarta.

Mentor dietitians were impressed by the support garnered by many of the mentor’s organisations for their respective projects. The potential for the projects to positively impact the health of Indonesians is impressive and we look forward to continuing to work with the fellows on their projects.

Meeting with Fellows, partner organisation and other representatives was a positive outcome and we look forward to ongoing partnership activities to improve provision and quality of nutrition services and training future nutritionists and dietitians in Indonesia.