UNAIR NEWS – Famous as one of the villages with largest community coffee plantations in Banyuwangi Regency, Gombengsari is chosen by one of the 62nd Community Service program (KKN) groups of Universitas Airlangga. The KKN group, consisting Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) students from various faculties, focused on Gombengsari Village digital trsnformation.
According to Dea Risti, as Head of Gombengsari Village Community Service group, digitalization is important because Gombengsari village has various potentials that need to be developed. On the other hand, the target of village branding is millennials active in social media, so village digitalization is very necessary.
“In the millennial era now, many people do activities through gadgets. So that information can be easily accessed through social media. By making the official website of Gombengsari Village, hopefully it can become one of the proper ways of village branding,” she said.
To begin with, there are obstacles related to Gombengsari Village’s Human Resources (HR). Ayuc Shinta Indah Sari explained that the human resources were not qualified in the digital field because the management of Pokdarwis (Tourism Awareness Group) in Gombengsari Village are not millennials.
As the first step, Gombengsari KKN group continue to provide assistance to related parties so that the management of the official website can be done independently.
“The goal is that the website manager will later be able to run the website and always update tourism-related content and small and medium sized enterprises (UMKM) products from Gombengsari Village on an ongoing basis,” explained Ajeng Grandis, one of the Gombengsari KKN group members.
Not only focusing on building and developing the official village website, KKN Gombengsari also makes pamphlets and catalogs containing the potentials of Gombengsari Village, from coffee education tours, Gombengsari nature tourism and various UMKM products in Gombengsari Village. They also assisted the village government in disseminating Covid-19 health protocols to the residents of Gombengsari Village.
Melan Argarini, a member of the Gombengsari Community Service Program group, also added that their group will not immediately take their hands off the work program in Gombengsari Village. They try to continue to provide assistance and form cadres to continue managing the village website. Because according to him, it is the young people of Gombengsari Village who understand and acknowledge anything about their village.
“Also, when there are activities to advance the local potential of Banyuwangis such as coffee festivals or similar activities, we are willing to help, because we have also established good relations with Pokdarwis and the people of Gombengsari Village,” Melan said.
As the party that helped in developing Gombengsari Village, Melan and her group also hoped that Gombengsari Village would be able to rise up in the pandemic, by starting activities as usual but still implementing health protocols as recommended by the Government.
“Also for the long term, we hope that with the enormous potential of Gombengsari Village, especially from the coffee plantations sector, hopefully it can be better known by the local and international communities,” she concluded.
Author: Bastian Ragas
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
