Youth’s Dedication for The Betterment of Society

The main purpose of entering a university is to gain knowledge in more specific fields. In Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) UGM, students are given three options of department : Accounting, Management, and Economics. FEB UGM gives the students  an opportunity to choose courses corresponding with each of  department’s study plan through Integrated Information System (Sintesis) website. The maximum credits taken by each of students every semester is 24 credits of courses. If students take 24 credits, it means that they will spend 20 hours in a class every week, and there will be 148 hours to do daily activities outside the class.
Every student has their own way in order to  spend their time outside the classes. Doing homeworks from lecturers, event organizing, or joining organization’s activites are the few examples. However, there are also students from FEB UGM who prefer to do social activitiy: educating society. “I believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Since periods of change such as the present one come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to create a happier world,” The Dalai Lama said. Azka Azifa, M. Ibnu Thorikul Aziz, and Fajar Surya Budiman are examples of students who use some of their time to make a difference in society by teaching and take real actions for a better education world.
Teaching is a hobby for Azka Azifa, Chairman of Economics Students Association (Himiespa) 2015, since she returned to Indonesia from Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program in United States of America. At first, Azka often thaught children near where she lives on how to read Al-Quran. After that, she took an initiative to turn her house into a place where she could teach children subjects at their shool.  Besides, Azka and her friends also spent their holiday by teaching children in an orphanage. She did all of this without asking for fees. This teaching program kept going on until her activities at FEB took most of her time away.
However, starting this year, ABW course in Bantul region asked Azka, their former student, to teach elementary school students who take additional courses in ABW.  She teaches four times a week from 6 to 8 pm. In order to become a good mentor, she sacrified her last holiday to join training program for mentors held by ABW course. She said that her teaching activity and her position as Himiespa’s chairman did not burden her,because  she does teaching whole-heartedly. In her opinion, it is not difficult to manage her time as long as she knows that the activity which become her top priority. Furthermore, she usually makes plans about what she is going to do every day to make it easier.
“Our faculty doesn’t have a tight schedule like medical faculty or engineering department, so there is still plenty of time to do something useful outside FEB. Moreover, we are students from social studies so it’s our responsibility to educate society,” Azka said. She also thought that everybody shouldn’t wait until they become rich or successful to help other people. “Do what you can do right now,  you should have a bravery and take the lead,” she said.
In a wider range, Ibnu Thorikul Aziz also concerned to improve education in Indonesia through a company that was built together with his best friends named CV Insan Gemilang Indonesia (IGI). According to him, the man who popularly nicknamed as Ibun, it has been from the beginning that he wanted to do the real thing for the betterment of the quality of education in Indonesia. “What I actually hope from this institution is that producing a tremendous amount of new medals executors,” he said.
The business value of this non-profit oriented company, among others, is to build a new nuance in making equal opportunity for schools that want to facilitate their students to excel in the field of science olympiad. Hold on its credo, “connect masters without borders”, teachers who will be sent to the area must meet the specified criteria, “To be a tutor, he should have championed on a national level, once taught, and has spawned a new medal.”
Armed with his experience following the Olympics, Ibnu also tries to instill a sense of responsibility and moral burden to the teachers by providing a method named ‘off-site’ for the tutors. ‘Off-site’ means a distance training via e-mail or phone after the training that has been held. Besides, the pupils can consult in preparing the strategy for their university admission test, considering that the tutors are mostly from Gadjah Mada University (UGM), University of Indonesia (UI), and Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).
Talk about how large the influence of the environment, especially in the campus, Ibnu speak his mind.  “The environment has a big role. But the most important is the mindset and convictions in entering a new environment,” said the man whom also Chairman of Himiespa in 2013/2014 period. According to him, with many and large events, as if FEB students are forced to tend to be busy in the cage with off-campus political indifference. “I used to be so, I joined Himiespa, BEM, and also SEF. But try to be wiser with ourselves.”
It’s slightly different with Fajar Surya Budiman, Economics student 2011 who also become a founder of Untuk Papua. He didn’t do his social activities in Java Island, but in a big island far away from Java : Papua. Untuk Papua is a non-profit movement to support children’s education in Papua by building library and other facilities for the betterment of society. Untuk Papua is a place for people who care about Papua’s condition. The idea to create Untuk Papua came from Fajar’s conversation with his friend in 2013, who also care with unfortunate condition in Papua. Papua’s condition is very different from where they live: there is only a little electricity, poor health facilities, low education, and expensive life’s cost. They thought Papua didn’t need people who only have a dream, but also people who took real actions by going there.
The opportunity to make Fajar’s dreams came true happened when it was time for him to do Community Service Program (KKN). He decided to do social projects there and looked for 29 other people who have the same dream and vision. It was very difficult to gather people who wanted to do their community service program in Papua, but in the end Fajar found a great team consisted of students from Economics, Agribusiness, engineering, medical, and  Social and Politics Faculty. With the help of FEB’s dean and an approval from UGM’s dean, Fajar was able to meet with senior and lecturers who have the same interest for Papua.
The biggest obstacle for Untuk Papua was about the money. They need a lot of money for transportation, accommodation, and doing their social project. Fajar and his team decided to hold charity concerts around the town, from café to café in Yogyakarta. Besides, they had talkshows on may radios to raise people’s awareness about Papua. They also sent many sponsorship proposals to government’s companies and banks. Fajar said, their obstacles are big, but he believed that when there was a good will, then there would be a way.
Fajar and his friends arrived in Manyaifun, Raja Ampat, Papua on July 2014. “Making interaction with people there was not easy,  our team needed one week to do consistent socialization so the people would trust them,” Fajar said. Moreover, children who live there have no teachers so Fajar’s team taught them for two months. They also built library with full of books located near the beach, 6 toilets, and set 50 sun panels around the village. Today, Untuk Papua become more well-known because of its programs. Besides, Fajar and his team’s journey was written in a book entitled Jejak Kaki di Timur Negeri. Untuk Papua also has a website and does its campaign through many social medias to inspire people and help children in Papua.
 
(Azka Feba Fadil M, Ulayya Gempur Tirani/EQ)