BANDUNG, unpas.ac.id – Kampus Merdeka Pejuang Muda Program initiated by Ministry of Social Affairs successfully made the interest of tens of thousands of students. About 5.140 of 11.109 students have passed the final selection.
Of 43 students of Universitas Pasundan getting the chance to be part of Pejuang Muda, two of them were students form Social Welfare Studies Faculty of Social and Political Science (FISIP); namely Dwi Rahayu Nurmiati and Riska Apriani.
Beside being related to their department taken, both of them are interested to join Pejuang Muda program because they like to join social humanity activity. This program also provides opportunities for Dwi and Riska to implement the theory they obtained in the class.
Pejuang Muda offers 4 focuses in the program, consisting the development of social assistance, empowerment of the poor and the elderly, healthy lifestyle and environmental health, and facilities for the public interest in post-disaster areas.
Place for Actualizing the Life Motto
Based on her life motto khoirunnas anfauhum linnas she always holds up to, Dwi decided to choose on the program of empowering the poor and elderly. Her purpose is nothing more than sharing benefits to the poor in such educational way and social welfare.
Before getting into the society, Dwi, along with other participants have attended the training from practitioners and other expert figures. She attended the training seriously and started to prepare herself, especially when it is related to the empowerment of the poor and elderly, as well as preparation of social problem concept.
“In the place where I live in, there are lot of the poor and elders that have not gained attention from the government. They are excluded in the list of social aid recipients, let alone their poor economic status,” she said, on Thursday, 14 October 2021.
The role of changing agent embedded by Kemensos to these Pejuang Muda has given motivation to Dwi to face the challenge and improve herself. She wished she would be able to give positive impact to the society and actualize her life motto.
“I want to improve social awareness and neighbourhood interaction in order to build each other’s awareness; also, to be the connector for both government and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to help actualize social welfare and change people’s social function to be more empowered,” she said.
Although she herself is still running on student exchange program in Politeknik Kesejahteraan Sosial Bandung, she still tries to manage her time and determine her priority scale to ensure the smooth running of the program.
“I have committed to take participation seriously, because I have been interested to this program since it was first established. I also joined the social community and have attended community service program: at least, these experiences would be my best preparation when getting into the actual field,” she continued.
Arising the Social Function of the Society
As a human who are ambitious to get rid of poverty, Riska also has her focus on empowering the poor and elderly. The sustainable program of empowering the poor and elderly encourage her to take contribution and act as agent of change.
“In my mind, the poor is individual whose social function is disturbed. They cannot arise from their adversity due to various factors. Through this program, I try to return their function back,” she said.
She thought that the poor and elderly need to be empowered in order to ensure their welfare. This is because poverty has the potential to be decreased to and it is feared that it will cause new problems. Children from underprivileged families do not have the privilege to receive education, obtain proper health insurance, and so on.
“I choose Pandeglang Disrict as the location of community service. Based on the browsing result in the internet, this area is at the top with the highest poverty rate in Banten Province. However, the final placement location will be determined by the Ministry of Social Affairs,” she continued.
Mentioned about the program description that she will be carrying out. Riska said she has just made a social entrepreneurship program as the business-based effort of getting rid of poverty. More to that, she is still waiting for the decision from Ministry of Social Affairs to be able to identify the problems in the placement area.
Students form Tangerang District has been actively running the humanity program along with community of Pemuda Peduli Kesejahteraan Social (PPKS) Bandung. She also has worked as Deputy Head of the Community Service Division (Divisi Pengabdian Masyarakat, Dispenmas) of Student’s Association of Social Welfare.
“I hope this program could run smoothly and what we will do in the placement area could be continued and helpful for the society; to make them able to empower themselves. Better than before,” she concluded. (Reta)*
