Improving Leadership with Educational and Socio-cultural Missions, IPB Students Visited Three Countries
As many as 40 students of Faculty of Agriculture (Faperta) of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) visited three ASEAN countries, which are Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand as a part of the program Agri Youth Leader Mission (AYLM) at November 20-25 2018. AYLM is one of Faculty of Agriculture (Faperta)’s Student Executive Board (BEM) programs which was run with cooperation with the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Indonesian Embassy. “This program aims to improve leadership in other countries. Besides that, this program is to carry on missions which became a challenge for Indonesian youths to lift their nationalism spirit. AYLM improves the knowledge, network, and patriotism of Faperta students. Alhamdulillah, this program obtained positive feedbacks from students,” said the head of BEM Faperta, Ridho Saputra.
According to the AYLM Field Coordinator, Adi Poernomo, the tour to three countries was started wih the session “Land of Indigenous Malaysia” in Klang, Selangor, which is the Indonesians’ Center of Education (PPWNI) and the attempt of Indonesian government to provide educational service to Indonesians residing abroad. The activities proceed to visit University Putra Malaysia (UPM) campus and Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS), an agriculture activities center.
In Singapore, the delegates will conduct a sharing session with Indonesian Embassy in Singapore with the theme “Singapore Development and Urban Planning of Sustainable City (Urban Agriculture)”, talking about food security issues while conducting proper planning, efficient utilization of resources, and to determine future vision and mission. Afterwards, with the Diaspore in National University of Singapore, the delegates learned the country’s strategies in fulfilling the needs of food of its people.
“We alongside Indonesian diaspore conducted a sharing session in which the delegates spoke out creative ideas in the context living as a nation,” said Adi.
When they visited Thailand, which is the world’s largest exporter of agriculture products, the delegates had a chance to visit the Students Society in Prince of Songkla University (PSU) with the purpose of sharing about the improvement in agriculture products, such as rice, sugar, rubber, flowers, and fruits. This is also a concern of Thai government in increasing farmers’ income while supported by model or good agriculture system. Besides that, the visit to Republic of Indonesia Consulate is also used as a sharing session about Thai agriculture in a big picture as well as visiting the Experimental Garden, Department of Plant Science, PSU.
The Dean of Faperta IPB, Dr. Suwardi and the Vice Dean of Academics and Student Affairs, Dr. Nurhayati hope that students of Faperta got good experience and brought along them the good name of IPB abroad, as well as being the ambassadors of Indonesia’s youths in agriculture. (Ard)
