Challenging Myself to Develop Communication Skills

Participant’s reflection on Communication Skills training 2020 batch 1

I am Irene Berta Meida Zalukhu, fondly called Iren, from Nias island, North Sumatra. Currently I am studying in STPMD "APMD" Yogyakarta majoring in Governance Science. Initially, I wanted to open my mind why I got this interesting experiences. People say that experience is the best teacher that teaches us many things. Experience is also considered as something valuable. Yes, like these words "search and gain experience", until I found a new experience while join online training held by Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta.

Initially I knew this institution from my sister who is also from Nias but she stays in Yogyakarta. The first training I joined was multiculture and inter-religion dialogue for three days and learned new insights with friends from various regions in Indonesia, even from Timor Leste and India. Since then I was actively involved in Stube HEMAT, including performed Nias traditional dances at international conferences. It was my pride to take part in it.

Entering Covid-19 pandemic period, where the public situation was not conducive, the lectures were conducted online,  and I spent most of time just in my boarding house. Finally I found a new opportunity, joined Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta training through Communication Skills training. This was fun and challenging because I got interesting materials and topics about Public Speaking that I did not know about before. Apparently, I did many things that I thought just trivial, such as verbal grafitti and pause when talking with e ... hmm ... etc. I learned and challenged myself to be better through a video about Covid-19 pandemic which discussed about whether students should return home during this pandemic. This idea came from the concerns of my family and relatives in Nias, because many Nias students in many cities had returned to Nias. So, I tried to find this information from several students. Further I encouraged myself to contact and ask for response from the house of representative member of North Nias regency. It was nice when I looked for video supporting materials, it turned out that the respondent gave good responses. The recording session was so challenging because it was the first time for me to perform through a video and apply the training material. I also practiced how to edit the video until the finalization, even I did revisions several times. Finally the video was uploaded on YouTube channel of Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta with a link https://youtu.be/fL6nrXjmt_A

I am satisfied with what I did, not from my ability, but God’s grace and supportive friends. I also learned and gained new experiences, as well as I inspired others to do productive activities during pandemic. Moreover, family, friends, lecturers and Stube-HEMAT gave appreciation in various forms and encouragement to develop my potency.

The best teacher in life is experience, I am not afraid to start developing myself and to keep doing it as long as it is worthwhile to do. I believe that there are still many good people who will always support and appreciate what we do if it brings goodness to others. (Irene Zalukhu).