By Trustha Rembaka
Entering 2022 provides new hope for the youth empowerment movement carried out by Stube HEMAT through the Multiplication of Stube HEMAT in Raja Ampat. Young people and student activists took part not only as participants but also managing activities. The first activity in 2022 is the Socialization of Stube HEMAT and Gender discussion (28/2/2022) involving its students and activists with Raja Ampat students studying at the Muhammadiyah Education University, Sorong-West Papua district.
The women's empowerment in Raja Ampat, West Papua has the objectives: 1) students learn and have discussion to understand the meaning of gender. 2) students and young people can treat men and women equally, and 3) students learn from female figures who give inspiration to the surroundings.
Regarding women's empowerment, there is a Gender Inequality Index as a compositional measure that reflects inequality in achievement between women and men as shown in several indicators, including reproductive health, empowerment, and the labor market, women's involvement in parliament, and opportunities to get education. The Indonesian Gender Inequality Index released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and published by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2021 shows that Singapore is the lowest and Indonesia gets the highest points, meaning that gender inequality in Indonesia is the highest in ASEAN, whereas gender equality is an important measure of global and national human development. It needs serious efforts from various parties to pursue the improvement.
The introduction of Stube HEMAT in Raja Ampat and discussions on Gender was attended by dozens of young people and students. This number is small than the number of students in Raja Ampat and its surroundings but it did not dampen their enthusiasm and willingness to learn new things and reveal the reality of the inequality between men and women in West Papua. Rev. Eirene Grace Nanuru, S.Th, the Multiplicator of Stube HEMAT in Raja Ampat said, “This activity is the opening for 2022 program, and we start with a prayer that every program of Stube HEMAT in Indonesia and Raja Ampat bring benefits for the Raja Ampat region.” Next, she introduced Stube HEMAT and its services to the newly joined students. In the next session, Rev. Grace asked them how much they understand gender and what it means. It turned out that most of them were unfamiliar with the term, and some have never even heard of it. It is the starting point for the Multiplicator to explain the term among them. Then, each participant told how women played a role in their respective villages.
One experience revealed that women have not played an important role, for example as leaders or decision-makers, as revealed by Adel, one of the participants. She told that no woman has played role as village head so far, usually, women are only secretaries or implementers. Women who become leaders are those who are priests in Tenanan village. Women activists in the village are usually those who are active in the Family Welfare Development organization (PKK) and they make handicrafts such as flowers, ‘senat’ or mats from ‘gabah’ or pandan leaves.
In this discussion, the Multiplicator also promoted follow-up activities to explore the role and development of Human Resources (HR), especially women in Raja Ampat, through exposures or study visits to Raja Ampat. It is a good time to start for the young generation of Raja Ampat to be a generation that plays an equal role between men and women for the development of Raja Ampat and Indonesia. You can do it! ***
