Yogyakarta—The Directorate of Partnership/Office of International Affairs (DK/KUI) of Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) hosted the 2023 Global Sustainable Program (GSP) on 8-11 August 2023.
Bringing the theme TALENT: Tales of Indonesian Coffee and Tea, the event invited international students from the international consortium of universities Passage to ASEAN (P2A).
The GSP aims to promote Indonesian culture to UII’s international partners through thematic activities. The previous iteration brought the theme Indonesia Heritage Story.
“For this second iteration, the GSP will focus on Tales of Indonesian Coffee and Tea,” said Nihlah Ilhami, S.Pd., DK/KUI Head of International Mobility and chair of the event’s organizing committee.
According to Nihlah, UII had experience organizing a similar event themed Indonesia Coffee Story but was packaged differently. This time, the topics participants learned about were not only around language and culture, but also on Indonesians’ tradition of drinking tea and coffee.
“So, they learn from the planting, production to how coffee and tea businesses are managed in Indonesia,” she said. “For that, we invited coffee and tea experts that also engage in the businesses.”
“We also invited students to visit some coffee and tea shops to directly see their execution on the ground,” she added.
Further, participants learned about the challenges relevant to coffee and tea businesses and did a final presentation on this topic. “So, it was a problem-based observation. Problems that interest them were chosen as the final project topic for them to present. And, since this overall program is competitive based, we chose the best final project and presenter,” she said.
Nihlah said the presentations by participants were aimed at training their critical thinking through problem-based learning.
“It hones their critical thinking by observing phenomena around them and linking them with knowledge. They see what’s currently trending and come up with thoughts,” Nihlah said. “So, the idea is to activate their sense of innovation that can facilitate them in developing a business.”
The GSP TALENT participants came from several countries, including Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Yemen, Pakistan, Malaysia, Palestine, Egypt, Nigeria and Uganda. Other than these international participants, Nihlah said the program also facilitated the internationalization of local students.
“Not only do we teach Indonesian culture to foreign students, but we also teach our Indonesian students through the representative-buddies’ sub-program. We select the buddies to facilitate internationalization at home,” Nihlah said. (VIP Magazine Vol 10)
