Since it was officially publicized on 18 December 2014, Warung Prancis (a French library) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (WP-UMY) has gained an achievement. Warung Prancis UMY was selected as the first best WP among 36 WPs at universities in Indonesia cooperating with Institute Francais Indonesia (IFI). The winner of the best WP competition, conducted since September 2014, was announced in an annual meeting of person in charge of WP across Indonesia in Jakarta on 6 February 2015.
Due to their dedication as person in charge of WP UMY, Puthut Ardianto, S.Pd., M.Pd. and Fahrizal Ramadhan achieved the main prize, a trip to France in the coming summer 2015. The winner was officially announced by Director of IFI Betrand de Hartingh and an attaché of cooperation of Universitat Antoine Devoucoux du Buysson in IFI office of France Embassy in Jakarta on 6 February 2015.
According to Puthut Ardianto, WP UMY successfully turned the best WP among 36 WPs across Indonesia due to being active in regular activities like holding seminars, being active on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, what supported the activity of WP UMY was that his party always carried out French movie screening so-called “Layar Prancis” (“France Screen”) as a regular agenda of WP UMY.
“The appraisal comprised regular activities at WP UMY as we have Club Francais guided by a French native speaker, Karine Josse. We also have cooking class of Karine, and we often organize seminars regarding studying in France cooperating with IFI. We are also good at using social media such as Facebook and Twitter comprehensively and consistently,” told Puthut when being contacted by BHP UMY on Monday (9/2).
Puthut expected that this achievement could be encouragement for himself and his colleague to develop WP UMY. He hoped that, noticing the achievement obtained by WP UMY, UMY’s students and Yogyakarta people could utilize facilities and activities carried out by WP UMY.
“This achievement grows encouragement of both of us to enliven Warung Prancis UMY more. I wish that many more students would employ facilities and activities at Warung Prancis UMY,” conveyed the lecturer of English Education Department of UMY.
Puthtut added that his colleague and he expected the university to encourage WP in the aspect of activity and facility budget since he discerned that other WPs were entirely supported by their university. Besides being the best WP, WP UMY has already possessed standard operating procedure of activities which other WPs across Indonesia have not owned yet.
“Our hope for this university is that WP UMY could gain more support in the aspect of activity and facility budget. Other WPs are fully supported by their university but they unfortunately do not have guideline and standard operating procedure while we have already possessed them. Hence, we indirectly provided standard operating procedure of WP activities to other WPs,” Puthut explained.
Besides managing Warung Prancis of UMY, Puthut and Fachrizal often join annual meeting and training conducted by IFI and France Embassy in Jakarta. The training is Culturtheque, a training of online media utilization to recognize France further. All of Warung Prancis visitors would later have a free account of Culturtheque, and could access all information of language, culture, food, and others dealing with France.
