The UGM Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing (FK-KMK) organized a popular writing training for lecturers on August 28-29, 2023.
The two-day popular writing training was conducted to enhance the skills of the faculty’s academic community, especially lecturers, in writing about community service activities they have carried out.
Various community service activities have been conducted by academic members, including lecturers, non-teaching staff, and students, ranging from health services and applying appropriate technology to community development, assistance, and empowerment throughout Indonesia.
The faculty has also been developing community service activities in the form of human_sociopreneur projects for the past three years. Several funding schemes are available to support these activities.
Community Service Coordinator Dr. Supriyati stated that students at the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing participate in community empowerment through student organizations and the mandatory Student Community Service Program (KKN-PPM).
In 2023, at least 83 groups of the faculty’s students have carried out community service activities through the KKN-PPM, spread across 23 provinces in Indonesia, covering 55 regencies/cities.
Supporting the KKN-PPM, the faculty provides opportunities for students to apply for funding. The faculty has now disbursed more than IDR 378,900,000 to support KKN-PPM projects.
Dr. Supriyati noted that writing of all kinds, including popular articles, is one of the outcomes of community service activities. However, popular writing has not yet become a habit for the faculty’s academic community.
“Through popular writing, we can increase public health literacy with a wider audience,” she said on Thursday (August 31).
During the event, notable figures from the faculty were present. One was anatomical pathologist Dr. Hanggoro Tri Rinonce, MD, who emphasized the importance of planning prior to writing popular articles. This step is necessary to ensure that the writing goals are achieved.
“Sometimes, writing popular articles feels more difficult for us. Many terms must be translated into simpler language for the general public to understand. This is crucial,” Dr. Rinonce added.
Winanti Praptiningsih, a public relations staff member at the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, explained the strategies and tips for creating popular articles.
She noted that numerous community service efforts made by the faculty’s lecturers are quite fascinating when written about in popular publications. The public’s access to knowledge will be increased by combining different community service outcomes into popular pieces.
Obstetrician-gynecologist M. Nurhadi Rahman, MD, a teaching staff at the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing who has been actively educating the public through social media, said that besides mass media, social media is also a potential platform for educating the public.
However, when using social media, attention should be paid to the type of social media used, and sharing information should not only be in the form of documentation but also involve creating content that can educate the public.
Author: Ika