There are various ways to introduce disaster mitigation. One of them is telling its content into children's storybooks as what has been done by a group of UGM KKN students in North Lombok. They created an innovative idea to introduce first aid methods for natural disasters in the form of children's storybooks.
The title of children's storybook innovation is "Baiq, Lalu & Earthquake" as the result of a program from the UGM SCS-CEL group in Tanjung District, North Lombok Regency (KLU), West Nusa Tenggara which just ended on August 18, 2020 yesterday. This program of Students Community Service (SCS) was supervised by Dwi Umi Siswanti, S.Si., M.Sc., from the Faculty of Biology.
This book has a uniqueness that lies in the setting of the story. It is adapted to the social background of the people of North Lombok in general. Starting from the name of the character, the name of the place, and some details of the story were deliberately adapted to the life of the Tanjung community.
"Local community's social is a background the reason why we raise this topic. Hopefully, the children out there, in our village, can easily understand the substance of this book," said Dea Raihana Salsabila, a member of the UGM SCS Tanjung group, as well as the author of the storybook.
Salsa said the book tells the story of a pair of brothers named Baiq and Lalu. Both of them live with their father and mother in a village called Medana. Once, there was an earthquake while Baiq and Lalu were playing in the house. Then, Mom and Dad advised their two children to stay calm and not worry about their friends and gave some simple guidelines regarding earthquake mitigation.
"The story is quite simple, but the contextualization is very applicable to real events. The name Medana is taken from the name of a village in Tanjung Subdistrict, where we run the program. Meanwhile, the names Baiq and Lalu are the real names of residents in North Lombok," explained Salsa while revealing that the area had been shaken several times by earthquakes.
Salsa revealed that the purpose of her group in creating a storybook is to treat psychological trauma for children was obtained by Salsa when she made observations online. From the information of residents and caregivers of the children's forum in Medana Village, it is known that some children in the area experienced trauma from the massive earthquake in August 2018.
Currently, the book has been sent and received well by the caregivers of the children's forum in Medana Village. With the storybook delivery to children in Medana Village, the Tanjung 2020 UGM SCS-CEL group hopes that the book can help reduce the trauma.
Dwi Umi Siswanti, as Field Supervisor for the Tanjung Group, also hopes that this book will become a moving inscription for the online UGM SCS-CEL in Medana Village.
"The children will last long remember and be inspired by the UGM SCS-CEL students through this storybooks," Dwi Umi added.
Author: Ika
Translator: Natasa A