UNAIR NEWS – Maintaining personal hygiene is one way to stay away from coronavirus. It can be done by regularly washing hands with soap.
For that reason, 62nd Community Service Program Team of Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) with Family Welfare Movement (PKK) representatives from Alasmalang village, Singojuruh Sub-district, Banyuwangi Regency, produced SUPIR MALING products. SUPIR MALING is an acronym for Environmentally Friendly Cleaning Soap.
Nana Nur Hasanah, as the person in charge of SUPIR MALING program explained that this program was held to answer the problems that exist in the community. SUPIR MALING is produced to be distributed to Alasmalang villagers, and is expected to add new skills to PKK members who also produce it with the Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) Community Service Program Team.
” We produce SUPIR MALING to reduce the burden in the community, especially in terms of reducing household expenses for purchasing hand washing soap, that’s what we see in the field,” Nana explained the reason for holding SUPIR MALING program.
Furthermore, Nana also said that SUPIR MALING not only be used as hand washing soap, but can also be used as dish soap. Besides being used for washing dishes and washing hands, SUPIR MALING can also be a business idea during a pandemic.
“SUPIR MALING can be used to wash hands or wash dishes, it is environmentally friendly, so it can be a new business opportunity for the community,” Nana added.
The activity of making SUPIR MALING conducted by the KKN Team of Universitas Airlangga and PKK Alasmalang with regards to health protocols. The chosen PKK reps were only two people, to avoid the crowd, and in each activity required to wear a mask.
The process of making the soap takes up to two days. The first day is for making soap, it is let to stand overnight. On the second day, it was packaged and added sticker, then distributed to the community.
Through the program, KKN Universitas Airlangga Team hopes that this activity can be continued even after the KKN has ended. PKK cadres who have received training are expected to be able to share their experiences with local residents, so residents no longer need to buy soap to wash their hands and wash dishes.
“We hope that the PKK cadres we empowered can pass on their knowledge to local residents, so that the program will be sustainable, thus at least household expenses will be reduced slightly because there is no need to buy hand washing soap and dish washing soap,” concluded Nana. (*)
Author: Dian Pratama
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
