UNS — The International Relations Student Association (Himaters), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, organized a community service activity for the residents of Tlogolele Village, Selo, Boyolali. The activity, entitled “Labuh Nagari,” was held on Friday-Sunday (14-16/1/2022).
The ‘Labuh Nagari was initiated and hosted by Himaters UNS under the theme “Spread Awareness, Create Togetherness.” This activity was initiated in response to the will of the Head of Himaters, Sanggam Napitupulu, who wished for a community service activity that also serves as a farewell ceremony for the past tenure Himaters Administrator.
He admitted that the economic gap between rural and urban communities become one of the supporting reasons for this community service program. “The economic gap between urban and rural communities is one of the causative factors for this idea. Moreover, the SDN (t/n: elementary school) 2 Tlogolele that we visited was still using the face-to-face learning system due to signals constraints and lack of virtual education equipment owned by the students. Additionally, community reading interest is still very low. At the same time, most of them (the students) only planned to pursue the junior high school or high school education, because of family economic conditions. Hence, we are interested in conducting a community service to teach the students, as well as various other social services in the community schools and the village in general,” said Rizaldi Uyun Anafi’ as the managing committee for the event to the uns.ac.id team on Monday (17/1/2022).
This activity requires participants to collect staple food packaged, to be distributed to the village residents, as well as second-hand clothes that are suitable to be donated or sold at a low price. The three days and two nights activity focused on the teaching and learning activities. While the social service program was conducted on the second day, Saturday.
Furthermore, he also provide the mechanism of teaching and learning activities. “We start the teaching and learning program at seven in the morning until twelve in the afternoon, for the materials taught are an introduction to cities and professions, Javanese arts, introduction to the environment and interaction with others, and several other materials. In the afternoon, we divided the participants into two groups: the first group was assigned to teach at the TPA (Taman Pendidikan Al-Quran), while the second group managed the Bazaar. The clothes sold in the bazaars were set at ten thousand rupiah to twenty-five thousand rupiah at a price,” he said.
Forty UNS International Relations (HI) Study Program students participated in this program and were assigned to various duties. The Labuh Nagari Program received a good response from the SD N 2 Tlogolele students and the village residents. The residents considered the arrival of UNS students to teach could bring new insights to Tlogolele students regarding the possibility of success in the future. The village residents even hope that the Labuh Nagari activities between Himaters and Tlogolele Village, especially Duluh Gumuk Rejo, can be a continuous program. They explained that there is not much community service in Tlogolele Village, which also involves residents in their activities.
Meanwhile, the committee faces only small obstacles during the program implementation. According to Uyun, not all of the UNS participants are from Surakarta, thus, some participants have not been able to take part in this activity directly. Additionally, there is a language barrier in Tlogolele Village, where the majority of the residents prefer to use Formal Javanese language, while not all participants are from Java, which inhibits the communication between the committee and residents. Humas UNS
Reporter: Zalfaa Azalia Pursita
Editor: Dwi Hastuti