UGM Students Community Service Program freshly continues to hold the Pangalengan Geotourism Festival 3.0 on the 18th July-15th August 2020. Since 2018, this annual event has the concept to introduce and convey the potential of Pangalengan to a wide audience without disremembering empowerment and benefits for the local community. "We certainly believe that the pandemic will not obstruct the creativity of the students' enthusiasm and the local community in running the program," said Indra Perdana, ST, MT, Ph.D., as the team's supervisor sent on Tuesday (21/7).
Ongoing to the 3rd year in its implementation, said Indra, Pangalengan Geotourism Festival still conducts the same spirit of empowering local people through various forms of participation. The other Supervisors also conveyed the same thing for Unit 2020-JB039, Drs. I Gusti Ngurah Putra, MA. said that the implementation of the Pangalengan Geotourism Festival in the last two years had received good attention from the Pangalengan community through various forms of participation. There are such as the appearance of artistic creations, product performances, and other active participation in realizing the Pangalengan Geotourism Festival. "Going forward, we hope this event can further arouse the enthusiasm of the local community in maintaining the sustainability of the Pangalengan Geotourism Festival, or the Pangalengan community can fully manage even this event," he said.
There is always something different in this event from previous years, this year the Pangalengan Geotourism Festival was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chairman of Pangalengan Geotourism Festival 3.0, Abdul Salam, said the COVID-19 pandemic would not stop the sustainability of the festival, but instead became an interesting challenge that could ignite the creativity of students and partners in limited conditions. "This time we will organize it virtually. However, we remain to collaborate synergistically with our partners namely Star Energy Geothermal Wayang Windu, Ltd., local governments, observers and stakeholders in tourism and SMEs around Pangalengan, as well as other local communities," Salam said.
Coming back as a form of collaboration between two UGM KKN-PPM Teams, which are the 2020-JB038 Unit and the 2020-JB039 Unit, Pangalengan Geotourism Festival (PGF) 3.0 this time carried the theme of the Pangalengan Masterpiece: Bringing Pangalengan Towards the Digital World. The festival, which involves various layers of the local community, has a series of activities, such as a photography contest and videography of Pangalengan wealth for the public (18 July-7 August 2020). Meanwhile, for an exhibition of potential Pangalengan on social media Instagram @pangalengan.geofest (8-14 August 2020 ), until the making of the Pangalengan tourism promotion video "Pesona Pangalengan" on August 15, 2020.
Abdul Salam said that several empowerment programs conducted by UGM Students Community Service Program strived to support the use of this potential by local communities equally in each village. After previous years in other villages, this time the empowerment activities focused on Sukaluyu Village, Margaluyu Village, Pulosari Village, and Warnasari Village, Pangalengan District. "The activities that we conduct include training in tourism management skills, empowering tourism awareness groups, to joint planning of the tourism development master plan," he said.
Author: Gusti Grehenson
Translator: Natasa A