Student of Faculty of Animal Science (FAS) UGM, Muhammad Amirul Bahaudin, dedicated himself to teach in Raja Ampat, Papua, through Youcan Empower for Nation program on 16—26 January 2018. The program entitled “Perluas Cakrawala Torehkan Cinta Nyata Untuk Indonesia” is aimed to make Indonesia better.
“Joining this program is one of my ways to dedicate myself for this country. I want to see Indonesia from a different point of view,” Muhammad Amirul Bahaudin said on Friday (23/3) at the FAS UGM. The student, often called as Adin, is passionate to share his knowledge to the people in Raja Ampat, especially in Friwen village. With 101 other members who came from various regions of Indonesia, Adin collaborated to teach students in Friwen.
“Friwen is a small island in Raja Ampat. We only need one and a half hours to go around the island. There are 30 elementary school students as well as 15 junior and senior high school students,” he said.
Behind the extraordinary beauty of the nature, there is inequality between the tourism potency and education, health, economy, and the local people awareness towards environment in Raja Ampat. “We taught elementary, junior, and senior high school students who are put together in an elementary school building. If not, junior and senior high school students must cross to the main island to study,” said Adin. However, this condition does not discourage them to study. “They are always enthusiastic to study and play. They are also very friendly. When we returned home, some of them were crying since they didn’t want us to leave,” said Adin.
Adin added, the government aid school building in Friwen is in a good condition since it was just built three years ago. They also have “Friwen Reading House” but unfortunately there are many elementary students who haven’t been able to read yet. “We taught them to read, write, and count. In Friwen, there are still many elementary students who haven’t been able to read yet and it decreases the reading interest. We also encourage the teenage students to actively teach their juniors to read. I hope I can involve in this activity longer in order to teach intensively,” he said.
The students’ references are books obtained from social activities held in Friwen. In addition, they also learned directly from people who carried out community service in Friwen. “They can’t learn from the internet because phone signal is not available yet there,” said Adin.
The 2016 student hopes that the education system in Friwen can be improved since those students have high motivation to advance. “They are very serious in studying and have great goals. I do hope that many Friwen students will study in UGM,” said Adin. In addition, he hopes that there are equality in promotion and tourism potency.
Besides teaching, he and his friends also cleaned the beaches, planted mangrove, served health consultation, and cleaned the village to promote the beauty and comfort of the island. “We also organized media social campaign to promote the tourism since only certain islands become the main destination while the others rarely gain the impact of Raja Ampat hustle,” he said. (Nadia)