Maritime and Fisheries Minister, Susi Pudjiastuti, dispatched thousands of students of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) on Friday (28/6) at Grha Sabha Pramana UGM to do Student Community Service project in 32 provinces.
Minister Susi said that Indonesia with its coastal lines being second in the world had not earned well in terms of welfare.
“Indonesia’s fisheries are not even the Big 3 in Southeast Asia. So, President Joko Widodo launched a mission to make the sea as the future of the nation and he issued laws to not forgive robbers in the sea by sinking the illegal ship,” she said.
This policy has increased the fish supply by two times, fishermen exchange value increasing by 10 times and fishery business value reaching 24 percent while export to be above GDP average. Meanwhile, fishery trade balance of Indonesia also ranks first in the region.
Minister Susi appreciated the Student Community Service that engages students from various disciplines, because without synergy between disciplines, comprehensive projects would not materialise.
“Student community service will be an activity required by the population to educate, empower and share recent knowledge from university,” she said.
At the end of her remarks, the Minister emphasised the fact that the Student Community Service could contribute to community capacity and capability building, besides communicating and uniting with the society to build the nation.
Meanwhile, Rector of UGM, Prof. Ir. Panut Mulyono, M.Eng., D.Eng., said the Student Community Service this time was followed by 5,360 students who would serve at 107 regencies/municipalities in 32 provinces from 28 June - 18 August 2019.
“With this big potential of students, it won’t be difficult to market research outcomes and simple technologies through the programme,” he said.
The programme will synergise UGM vision and mission with the SDGs achievement of the region while cooperating with working partners to achieve them, which include the Maritime and Fisheries Ministry .
Panut said there were 51 of 186 locations of community service situated in coastal areas, thus 27 percent of the students or 1,447 would carry out projects in maritime and fisheries sector. “This is an evidence that UGM plays the actual role in building the country’s fisheries, marine and maritime sectors,” he said. He reiterated that UGM wanted to be part of the process to advance the nation.
Also attending the event was Governor of Central Java, Gandjar Pranowo, who gave a briefing to the students prior to the community service.