On Sunday (6/10), Office of International Affair (OIA) FEB UGM with Global Leadership Forum (GLF) presented Cultural Immersion Day (CID). CID is an outbond activities with the participants from Indonesian students and foreign studens FEB UGM held in Pentingsari
Village, Cangkringan, Sleman.
The participants did not only do outdoor activities, but also got a chance to know about local culture. CID programs were divided into two main activities. The first is leadership training program, for examples by doing egrang races and mud soccer. The other is learning about Javanese culture by doing Srikandi Surodewati dance, catching fishes in the rice field and making batik.
Although there activities were new for the foreign students, the still look confident and enthusiastic when learned about Javanese culture. More than that, the foreign students mingled with Indonesian students in every activity. This is a good thing since there is a stigma in campus that saying foreign students do not want to socialize with the local student.
“Before GLF was formed, Indonesian student and foreign students are seldom to socialize with each other. Now, GLF has a goal to make them get closer by a program named ‘Tandem Learning Program’. It is a program to help the foreign students learn about Indonesia – language, art and culinary. This CID is a part of Tandem Learning Program,” said CID Coordinator, Novita Sari Vitaloka (Management, 2010).
Some foreign students told that they were happy and very interested with the activities. Kyrie, student from Canada, said that she liked to practice the traditional dance and catches the fishes in rice field. “I couldn’t do such a cool things in my country!,” she added.
Rizal Helga, a Tandem Partner, also said the same opinion. “This program is full of benefits and also I am happy that foreign students and Indonesian student could interact closely. The line between foreign students and Indonesian students become more blurred,” he said.
Source: Aina/FEB
