25 students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) associated in a community of ‘Generasi Bakti Negeri’ (GBN) will perform community service (KKN) in Sebatik Island. It is the sustained program held in 2015 and focusing on Indonesia-Malaysia Border Community Empowerment through a Synergy Program of Education, Creative Economy, and Youth Character Empowerment Based-Moral and Intellect. The previous KKN successfully enhanced educational and economic sectors, initiated a free drug village, and empowered the youth in Central Sebatik District (Aji Kuning and Maspul village).
Chief of the KKN team, Novriansyah Gunawan, informed that the sustained KKN would concern with ‘Optimizing Socio-Economic, Socio-Cultural, and Socio-Technology potentials Based on Morals and Intellect’ in Bukit Harapan and Sungai Limau. “Central Sebatik comprises several villages, namely Aji Kuning, Maspul, Sungai Limau, Bukit Harapan. The villages possess abundant natural resources, but the people have not yet utilized them well. In fact, clean water becomes a vital issue in Central Sebatik,” he stated on Friday (15/7).
Novriansyah inserted that lack of information of raw food management is the other crucial issue. “Generally, both villages where we will conduct the KKN (Bukit Harapan and Sungai Limau, ed.) confront the same issues such as accessibility to the village, traffic crimes, illegal goods smuggling, and drug smuggling,” he told.
After analyzing the issues, the team created four main programs and thirteen sub-programs. The four primary programs are dealing with education, creative economy, sciences and technology, and a special program of Sekolah Tapal Batas. “The four programs are broken down into the sub programs. For instance, in the educational sector, my team will concentrate on moral, intellectual, and health education. For the creative economy, we will initiate raw food management, free rubbish village, and family education saving. Regarding sciences and technology, we will provide training of clean water management and journalism. Last, will hold an intensive program of Sekolah Tapak Batas (a school for children of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia, ed.). The programs are arranged based on the research and my team’s two-month observation,” he mentioned.
The team entails support and cooperation from any parties, institutions, and other communities so that the programs can run well and overcome the issues in 3T areas (Disadvantaged, Outermost, Frontier). “May the programs actualize Sebatik as a tourism place, and foster the people comprehension of natural resources, health, and drug effects,” he expected.
