Being selected as one of the participants in the Exposure To Raja Ampat program to the Papua island, especially the Southwest Papua province which has just developed as a province, became a blessing given to me by the Lord Jesus. It is my first experience serving the community in my homeland, Papua. On the other hand, this is a challenge what can be done by seeing and experiencing reality.

For two weeks in February, I shared my knowledge and skills with the community in Majaran, Sorong Regency, Southwest Papua. There I find sad reality that the human resources still left behind. It must be admitted that education in Papua must 'run' to catch up other regions by increasing educational facilities and educators.

Activities at the Majaran with the Multiplication of Stube HEMAT in Raja Ampat are public speaking training, learning English, reading, writing, story retelling, and operating PowerPoint. In the training process, we see that the people has high enthusiasm and fighting spirit but there’s still minimum facilities to develop their potency and capacity. In Wonosobo village, I found children with high spirits and enthusiasm for learning, but there’s not enough teachers. One mother said that the children here are smart, but there is no teachers to serve and educate them.

From the experiences I found various things as a reflection that it is not enough just to teach but must be accompanied by guidance or education. Young people, children, and society will easily understand if teachers giving education while serving. Furthermore, it is important to transfer knowledge to young people and the community to broaden their horizons, as well as to become the basis for moving towards to a better and healthier future.

Furthermore, I discovered local youths are skilled at hunting, but they did not know how to manage the potencies around them, such as sago, coconut, taro, and sea fish. Surely, they will be able to do it if there is support to increase their skill, for example, processing sago into pastries, taro into balado chips, or sea fish into a mixture of chili sauce. In my opinion, the assistance must be carried out continuously until it works. The empowerment of young people and the community is expected to increase their potential so that they can work independently doing entrepreneurship.

Thank you to Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta as a place for developing the capacity of young people to work. It’s a hope that many more students will have the opportunity to do community empowerment. ***