Finally, the moment I dreaded has arrived... instead of the usual leisurely four-month break during semester holidays, this semester break, I have to spend it on a Community Service Program (Kuliah Kerja Nyata/KKN). Honestly, I really didn't want to join KKN, but if I don't, I won't be able to participate in the next semester's thesis, so I have no choice but to join—sigh -___-
By the way, I used to think that KKN (Community Service Program) wasn't much different from an internship or practical training that high school graduates do. Being in the Accounting Major, I imagined that my KKN would be something like an internship in an office to gain a deeper understanding of Accounting. Turns out, I was completely wrong, and in my opinion, the name should be changed to KPM, which stands for Kuliah Pengabdian Masyarakat (Community Service Study) because its program leans more towards serving the community.
Well, as the title suggests, I want to leave some thoughts about my experience undergoing KKN.
July 9, 2015 : Group Allocation
During the final exams of the sixth semester, everyone in the class was busy creating BBM statuses about the distribution of groups for the Community Service Program (KKN) that were already posted in the campus hall. Curious, I ended up going straight to the hall to find out more about the location and which group I had been assigned to.
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| List kelompok KKN |
After checking, I found out that I was placed in a village in Pelabuhanratu district. I felt really down because it was quite far, about a 2-hour journey from Sukabumi city, and I've never stayed far away from home (I'm really a mom's child). Looking at the list of names of students in my group, I also felt like, "Why am I not that lucky?" Two of my friends were placed in the same group, while I was separated from them. In my group, there were two people from the same major as mine, but I wasn't close to them. The rest were students from other major whom I didn't even know. :( I was really afraid I wouldn't be able to blend in with my groupmates, especially considering that the KKN period was quite long, 40 days.
August 3, 2015: KKN Briefing
First time I met my KKN groupmates was during the KKN briefing. My first impression of them was that I felt totally out of place because none of their faces looked familiar, but luckily, they were pretty friendly and welcome. By the way, during this briefing, I started understanding what the thematic KKN concept is actually like. Basically, each KKN group is given a mission by the university. Since my university belongs to the Muhammadiyah organization, our KKN mission had two types: building community empowerment centers ("Posdaya") and establishing Muhammadiyah organization branches. Our group was tasked by the university to build a Posdaya. FYI, Posdaya is like a community forum in the village aimed at improving the welfare of the people. So, if there's no Posdaya in the village, the KKN group, along with the local village, has to establish one. But if the village already has a Posdaya built by previous groups or other universities, then our KKN task is to reactivate it (if it's inactive) or continue the Posdaya activities (if it's still active). Besides building Posdaya, there was another mission: creating a welfare map of the KKN village.
The days between the briefing and the actual KKN days were really close, around 9 days left, but our group hadn't prepared at all because we just got to know each other during the briefing. Meanwhile, other groups had already created a BBM group, chatted a lot, made preparations, and even conducted location surveys well before the briefing. Since we were behind, on the guidance day, we agreed to do an impromptu location survey the day after tomorrow. I took the initiative to join the survey because I wanted to get an idea of what the village location was like.
August 5, 2015 - August 9, 2015: Location Survey and Finding KKN Base
Long story short, we started our survey to the location, initially, the journey towards the village was smooth and quite good. Our first destination, of course, was the village office to inquire about our KKN location. One of the village officers kindly guided us to that village, where we met the head of the hamlet. The condition of the village we visited at that time was such that the entry road was still rocky even though the main road looked fine. There weren't too many residents, and they still used communal bathroom facilities because the ground was dry, and not every house had its own toilet. Can you imagine how complicated it would be if we did KKN in that village, especially with toilet matters? But since there were very few residents, there were no rented houses or vacant homes for us to stay during KKN. Instead, the hamlet head himself recommended negotiating with the university about our base so that we could rent a house in another village but work in that village.
After the first survey, a few days later, the KKN leader invited us to survey again to find a solution to the previous issues. I didn't join this second survey because I had some campus activities at that time. In the evening in our BBM group, somehow, the group leader said they managed to negotiate with the supervisor to move the KKN location and got a pretty comfortable rental house for all of us. But the catch was, although our initial task was in one village, it now had to be expanded to cover the whole village because our base was moved to another hamlet. But whatever, the essential thing was getting a comfy house during KKN.
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| Posko KKN |
August 12, 2015: Departure Day
On the departure day, I intentionally packed quite a lot of personal stuff like a mattress, bucket, utensils, etc. I was genuinely afraid of not being able to blend in or finding no one willing to share with me. So, I decided to prepare for the worst, at least having my own belongings to survive.
The first day at the KKN base, we were all still busy organizing our stuff and trying to get to know each other.
August 12, 2015 - September 22, 2015
I can't jot down every single thing I did during the 40 days of KKN, so here are the highlights!
1) On the second day, we visited the village office, had a chat with the village head about our mission from the university, and asked more about the village.
2) We organized an event called "Saresehan Awal." It was a kind of introduction of our KKN group to the villagers while explaining our purpose in the village. From this discussion, we found out that there wasn't any "Posdaya" yet in the village. So, our actual mission was to Build Posdaya.
3) After the Saresehan, the group leader assigned us to different Posdaya divisions based on our majors. Being in the Accounting major, I joined the economics division. Each division's task was to create a program related to that field for the village.
4) Before focusing on our programs, the KKN leader asked us to finish the "Mapping of Prosperous and Pre-Prosperous Population" task as we had to submit this report online to the university ASAP. My task was field mapping, somewhat like a census taker. Initially, I followed the university's instruction to visit each house to interview the residents about their family's situation. But doing door-to-door in our entire village took forever. It needed 3 days for just one village to gather all the data. Eventually, I came up with the idea of visiting the head of the hamlet to get the necessary data and information about the residents. It was pretty effective. What took 3 days now only took 1 day, and we got quite comprehensive data. I handed over the survey results to the group leader to sort the prosperous and pre-prosperous categories. Another student then graphically mapped this data. It took about 3 weeks until all the data for population mapping was collected.
5) Data collection got delayed due to several events, including Indonesian Independence Day on August 17th, where our KKN team organized activities for the villagers. We also had other communal activities like cleaning the village river.
6) After finishing the graphical population mapping, we held an event similar to Saresehan, presenting our findings from the past 3 weeks. Essentially, for the villagers categorized as not prosperous, we planned to provide aid by giving groceries and other necessities.
7) Once the mapping task was done, we started focusing on our division programs. The economy in my KKN village mainly revolved around producing and selling homemade food and beverages like chips, traditional herbal drinks, etc. My division mate and I decided to create new packaging designs for the local entrepreneurs to make their products more appealing. Additionally, we invited a management professor from the university to provide training for the village entrepreneurs to help expand their market reach.
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| During Entrepreneurs Training |
8) After all the division programs were carried out, we wrapped up KKN with the Final Saresehan. Basically, during this event, we reported to the villagers about everything we've been up to for over a month, explaining the programs we've worked on. Also, it was our way of saying goodbye to them before heading back home.
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| My KKN Team |
Actually, the activities I mentioned earlier were the official ones, the ones related to the university's mission. Just like in other KKN stories, in my group, there were student dramas like crushes, cheating, breakups, relationship violence, theft, and even horror stuff. Basically, all sorts of things happened, and if I were to tell those stories, it would take a lot longer.
The benefit of KKN in the Pelabuhanratu area was that we could explore the tourist spots around Pelabuhanratu without needing to stay in a hotel if we wanted to see the sunrise.
So, that was my experience during KKN in Pelabuhanratu. Not too bad, actually, just had a lot of fears at the beginning. Now, it's time to get back to the campus life and prepare for my thesis. Wish me luck, guys!!! 🤞