It’s Time for the Young to Work 

Social Entrepreneurship Training

Wisma Martha Yogyakarta, 22 – 24 August 2014

"After joining Social Entrepreneurship training held by Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta, I got new experiences. This training opened my horizons, especially towards on my homeland, Sumba. Hopefully, I can be involved in the next program" said Abisag Ndapatara, a Sumbanese student in English Education of Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa University. Aby, her nickname, became a participants in Social Entrepreneurship held by Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta, on Friday – Sunday, August 22 – 24, 2014 at Wisma Martha Yogyakarta.

The training attended by 33 participants from various campus opened by introduction session which participants introduced themselves using their local languages and translated into Indonesian. Trustha Rembaka, S.Th., the coordinator of Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta explained the training helps students to recognize and sharpen their skills and bring them to their awareness toward social issues around them. Participants are expected to see, find and develop the potencies of their homelands and solve the problems that occured there. Furthermore, participants are encouraged to be creative and brave to actuate innovations in community development.

Stenly R. Bontinge, ST, delivered introduction of Stube-HEMAT history and its activities. Hery Alberth Gardjalay, a student from Dobo who study in Laws Faculty of Janabadra University continued the session by sharing his experience in Sumba as participants in Exploring Stube HEMAT Sumba program. While Pascah Hariyanto, a  theology student of STAK Marturia Yogyakarta, shared what he did during his holiday. He returned to his village, Pisang Jaya, East OKU, South Sumatra to observe rat pest, rice crop failure and church’s role in assisting farmers to solve problems. Other participant of Local Exposure Program, Septi Dadi, familiarly called Putry, shared that she returned to Sumba, to examined the drop-out rate of high school students in grade 11 in Waingapu in 2010 – 2014. This study is closely related with statistics which she studies in as a student of Faculty of Mathematics Education, Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa University, Yogyakarta.

The understanding of social entrepreneurship and its scope was presented by I Nyoman Matheus from LPM Pelita Kasih, having experiences to assist and empower communities. Then Endro Gunawan guided participants to map the origin of participants, both problem and its potencies.

The exposure session as a field study was held in ancient volcano of Nglanggeran (GAP = Gunung Api Purba). Participants were divided into two groups, the first group visited ancient volcano and the second group observed Nglanggeran pond. Each group observed and studied the beginning of the development of GAP. Sugeng Handoko, ST, the inspirator, recounted the pioneering action to develop GAP tourist area and the importance of community participation. In fact, Sugeng Handoko encouraged participants to be dare to realize their creative ideas into a pilot project proposal. Either did Rev. Bambang Sumbodo, M.Min, a member of Stube HEMAT board, challenged participants to be creative and innovative to face youth problems, and throw away unwillingness to do a work.

At the end of the event, the participants formulated a design of creative activities to address social problems that occured around them. ‘Angles’ group, observing the financial problems of students  plans to begin ‘Angkringan Lesehan’. Then the ‘Green Group,’ which saw idle land and the destruction of soil due to chemical fertilizers tried to plant vegetables around their boardinghouse and used environment-friendly fertilizers. While ‘Sajojo Group’ explored a tendency of falling ‘salak’ (local fruit) prices in big harvest time, so they were challenged to conduct alternative activities in ‘salak’ garden.  Next, group of Umba Paraing was interested to assist female farmers community in Waingapu to solve information acces limitation towards vegetables. While participants from Alor were challenged to introduce Mali beach in Alor island. Let’s start now. It’s time for the young to work. (TRU)