Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) sent 29 students to an Indonesia-Malaysia border area to have Community Service (KKN). They will carry out the community service for two months in Aji Kuning and Maspul, Nunukan, Sebatik Island, Kalimantan Utara. The community service raised a theme of Indonesia-Malaysia Border Community Empowerment through a synergy program of education, creative economy, and Youth Character Empowerment Based-Moral and Intellectual.
Vice Chancellor I of UMY Dr. Ir. Gunawan Budiyanto, M.P. conveyed that the community service aimed at assisting to solve the social issues. He informed that Sebatik island comprises of 360.0 Ha of oil palm plantation (60% of the area) and 17.41 Ha of fishpond in Sebatik district. In the fishery area, 15.7 % of the community is a fisherman, and the main product of the area is Ambalat anchovy. “Besides, tourism places in Sebatik island adequately evolve. There are 6 tourism places that one of them is Taiwan River having yellow sand. Nevertheless, the abundance of natural resources is not in line with the number of human resources who is able to manage so that the economy of the area is weak,” he mentioned in a Press Conference and Soft Launching of Border Area Community Service on Monday (10/8) at Loby of Rector, A.R. Fachruddin A, Floor 1, UMY.
Furthermore, Gunawan asserted that the other issue emerged due to the location of Sebatik island in Indonesia-Malaysia border area. It is dealing with nationalism, dependence of Indonesia on Malaysia, drug smuggling, the use of currency, and lack of educational facilities for children of labor workers affecting illiteracy. “Based on the circumstances, UMY attempted to assist the community through thematic community service of UMY carried out in August-October 2015. The students will depart to Sebatik on Wednesday (12/8),” she informed.
The vice chancellor also stated that the particular community service to Sebatik Islmand will carry on till 2017. Besides, the activity roadmap has been arranged by the participants. “They will concern on education of nationalism and creative economy in 2015, health and tourism economic monitoring for elevating nationalism in 2016, and coining Sebatik Island as a tourism place in 2017,” he inserted.
Head of Development, Publication, and Community Service Affairs (LP3M) Hilman Latief, Ph.D. uttered that his party are grateful since the community service in a border area can be conducted. It was supported by the enthusiasm of the students to cope with the issues emerging in a border area. “Alhamdulillah, the students can create three themes for their juniors. We are also thankful because Ministry of Social encourages this community service. They attempted to link to the local social department,” he informed.
Hilman inserted that the supervisors of the community service are Dr. Ir. Gunawan Budiyanto, M.P. and Ahmad Ma’ruf (Lecturer of Economics). “The students will be supervised by professional lecturers so that we expect that the community service can be successfully carried out, and we can have further cooperation with the local area or other institutions. We will also undertake the similar community service in other border areas,” he added.
Furthermore, a student of International Relations batch 2012 as well as a coordinator Deni Febrian said that the program of the community service is developing creative economy through training of local food management and nationalism theme accessory making. They will also conduct movement of Sebatik community to be aware of tourism economy, basic accounting training, saving program, and entrepreneurship training for labor workers. “We will also organize technology information training because based on our survey they are lack of understanding of technology information. Besides, we will foster education of nationalism, art, and culture for children and labor workers, and will socialize health. All the activities will be held at Rumah Bakti Negeri, a building functioning as center of production, cooperative, and learning for children,” he explain.
Additionally, the community service of Sebatik Island aims at elevating educational quality for students in Indonesia border area through Gerakan Pencerdasan dan Penumbuhan Generasi Berkarakter (Movement of Educating and Growing Qualified Generation). The other purposes are fostering border community’s awareness of the significance of education as the foremost need, growing self-belonging to NKRI through local Indonesian culture exhibition and performance, growing concern of border community health, lifting economic quality of border community by creative economic movement utilizing local materials and inserting nationalism knowledge, enhancing and empowering economy of Sebatik Island community by creative economy, assisting government as well as community to optimize natural resources in Sebatik Island, and elevating community prosperity in Sebatik Island, particularly Sebatik Tengah.
