ITS and local students work together during the community service programs.

ITS Campus, ITS News – Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) continues to make a real contribution nationally, and one of them is through community service programs. To support this step, ITS invites its students to help the victims of the earthquake disaster in North Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) through the Thematic Community Service Program (Kuliah Kerja Nyata Tematik – KKN Tematik).

Lalu Muhamad Jaelani ST MSc PhD, Head of the Directorate of Research and Community Service (DRPM), revealed that after the earthquake in 2018, ITS was directly appointed by the Regent of North Lombok to assist community problems in the Rempek Darussalam Village. For about five months, the ITS team was there to help the community to provide their daily needs. “We, together with the community also built 239 temporary housing units,” he said.

The man who is often called Lalu then explained that this year ITS was returning to provide community service to the village. Unlike the previous one, in this year the community service was packaged in the form of Thematic Community Service Program or Thematic KKN. It aims to collaborate community service between lecturers and students.

ITS and local students prepare the building materials for temporary schools in North Lombok.

In order to continue the community service, Lalu said that since the beginning of February, ITS had been sent its 10 students to Lombok. Among them, there were four students from Department of Geophysical Engineering, three students from Department of Geomatics Engineering, and the rest from Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. “Even though some of the majors are less relevant to the problem, we guarantee that students can contribute well,” he said optimistically.

In its implementation, ITS cooperates with other tertiary institutions. Among them are the Universitat Stuttgart from Germany, Universitas Nahdlatul Ulama Nusa Tenggara Barat, and Universitas Hamzanwadi. “Together, we will help the community (North Lombok Regency, ed),” said the lecturer of the Department of Geomatics Engineering.

The lecturer who is also ITS alumnus also explained, Thematic KKN held in about one and a half months, starting from 10 February to 22 March 2020 by sending one team every two weeks. ITS also helped a team from the University of Stuttgart to build a school made of bamboo for children in the village. It was planned that there will be three classrooms that will be built in this Thematic KKN. “Each team creates one classroom,” he said.

ITS and local students work together to prepare building materials for temporary schools in North Lombok.

Lalu said, the classrooms were made from bamboo because many villagers were still traumatized by brick and concrete. The other reason was because bamboo can be found easily in Rempek Darussalam Village. “In terms of strength it is (bamboo, red) also good,” he claimed.

Lalu added that this Thematic KKN has many positive impacts on various parties. Not only for the intended community, but also the students themselves. Beside to fulfilling lecture assignments in the form of KKN, it also can be a platform to contribute directly to the community and social learning.

From those reasons, Lalu encouraged students in the fourth to sixth semester to take part in this Thematic KKN. For ITS itself, Thematic KKN can also be one of the indirect ways of promoting ITS to the wider community.

ITS students take pictures with local school students

Lalu who also came from NTB revealed the fact that this year, the Community Service Program will be reinstated by ITS through a program run by the Directorate of Research and Community Service (DRPM) ITS.

It is planned that around June 2020, 1,500 ITS students who take the Technology Knowledge and Application course will be sent directly to the collaborative community service program “Brantas Tuntas” in Kediri Regency. The things that will be done by students including cleaning up the basion of Brantas River, planting trees, and counseling session with the community.

Lalu hoped that Thematic KKN ITS can continue. Not only that, an increase in the number of students who participated also became his hope for the future. “Because this Thematic KKN has many benefits, so it is so unfortunate if this program can’t continue,” he concluded hopefully. (dil/sel/ITS Public Relation)