Sejumlah warga desa Pilang, Sragen tengah membatik (foto: Solopos.com)
Mahasiswa UGM Kembangkan Wisata Edukasi Batik di Desa Pilang, Sragen
Various types of batik cloth spread out in various parts of the archipelago with the characteristic of their region. This fabric has been included as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.
Pilang village in Sragen city, Central Java is one of batik production centers in Central Java. Most citizens worked as batik artisans. Beside as a source of income, batik is a form of cultural preservation as well.
In order to develop batik business in Pilang village and promote it widely, a group of students at the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) initiated education-based batik tourism in Pilang. They empower people in Pilang to create educational tour with a program called Batik Pilang Education Park or abbreviated as Taksi Tilang.
Taksi Tilang was initiated by five students named Alvin Nizam Wandala (Tourism), Rizky Puspa Dewi (Midwifery), Faiz Afnan Nurrahman (Agricultural Engineering), Budi Utomo (Agricultural Engineering), and Dwi Novitasary (Agricultural Engineering).
Faiz Afnan said Taksi Tilang program is a form of socialization and tourism education. Batik Pilang Education Park consists of three main post. In each of these posts the tourists will be introduced to batik and given a variety of information about their batik production. "Here the tourists are also given the opportunity to learn batik directly," he explained, Monday (8/8).
Further explained by Faiz Afnan, in the first post visitors are introduced to tools, materials, design, and practices to make batik. While in the second post, visitors will be introduced to the complete process of making batik. Then, in the last post the tourists are introduced to batik printing.
"So, travelers would go from one post to second post and third post, and then returned to post one to practice batik making," he said.
After they practice to make batik, visitors would countinue their journey to the batik shops owned by the local residents. In there, tourists can buy batik and souvenirs of local products.
Taksi Tilang formed the organizational structure of Batik Village Educational Tourism, standard operating procedures of travel services, tourism awareness and networking community. Faiz Afnan hopes after assistance from UGM, local communities could implement the travel management independently.