Sumowono | Semarang | October 30, 2016 Student Charity Camp (Kemah Bhakti Mahasiswa/KBM), a type of student camps aimed to foster the students’ social awareness was held by the University of Muhammadiyah Semarang (Unimus) yesterday, October 29, 2016 in Sumowono village, Semarang Regency. The theme of the event was “Developing Social Awareness for Preserving the Nature in Our Beloved Country”. The camp was attended by 1400 participants, consisting of 1250 participants from the class of 2016 and 150 participants from the classes of 2014 and 2015.
The opening ceremony prior to the departure of the students to Sumowono Village was held in the Rectorate frontyard. The ceremony was led by the Vice Rector III (Drs. Samsudi Rahardjo, S.T., M.M., M.T.), followed by an official opening ceremony held in the village square of Sumowono at 1 p.m. The latter was attended by the Sub-district Head of Sumowono, the Village Head of Sumowono (Isroful Yunus), the Neighborhood Association Head, the caregiver of the Local Islamic boarding school/Ponpes (K.H. Bahrudin), and a couple of delegations of Muhammadiyah’s District Executive Board of Sumowono. The event was officially opened by the Sub-district Head of Sumowono symbolically by a gong beating.
The purpose of the event was to foster as well as guide the social life of the students so that they could have a higher social awareness, as one of the duties of higher education students. Besides, it was one of the manifestations of the Four Obligations: community service. A series of events was held including fee-of-charge medical examinations and counseling, social analyzing activity in form of analyzing the local people’s houses, groceries handover, an Islamic lecture by Muhammadiyah’s Local Executive Board of Semarang Regency, performing art, camp fire, social service, as well as outbound.
The Vice Rector II (Dr. Sri Rejeki, S.Kep., M.Kep., Sp. Mat.), representing the Rector of Unimus said thank you to the Headman of the Village who had been very welcoming to the students. She hoped that the students could be useful to the village. A similar statement was spoken by the Subdistrict Head of Sumowono, saying that, “The camp can give a strategic role for Sumowono Village in particular and also could be done sustainably. Besides, we hoped that the event can train the students to have a leadership so that they will be capable of becoming decision makers as well as improving their solidarity, which is useful for the society.”
The main expectation of the event is that this could motivate all students of the University of Muhammadiyah Semarang to be more aware of and sensitive to the surroundings.
(Source: Student Activity Unit of Communication – Technical Unit of Public Relations and JIPC)