Earthquake Fundraising in Daejeon University
Fundraising
On Wednesday evening, September 30 2009, a 7.8 Richter scale earthquake stroke Padang, Sumatra, a western part of Indonesian Archipelago. More than 1.300 victims were found dead while the other 2.300 wounded. Such a huge natural disaster streaks the heart of every Indonesians everywhere. Many cried in response of such unexpected disaster, many also participated to help the government in providing response and recovery after the quake.
As Indonesians who love our country so much, we, the Indonesian exchange students in Daejeon University, Daejeon, South Korea, were also trying to contribute in raising some donations to help the recovery process of the disaster. We, with the help of our Korean friends, organized a fundraising to help the Padang earthquake victims in Indonesia.
After having some short meeting in arranging our fundraising, we decided to use 3 methods. First, we sent e-mails to every friends and professors that we know. We believed that this would be the best way in starting since closest friends and professors know and trust us. Moreover, since they know us, they would provide some more helps and ideas. We could share our awareness of such issue to them, and then to their friends. After few days, we had some professors and organizations transferred their money to our account.
Secondly, we created a booth inside Jisan Library of Daejeon University where we put the banner and donation box there. With the help of International Office, organized by Mr. Pyo Chang-Sun and Ms. Choi Hwa-Yeon, we were able to get the permission from president of Daejeon University and to create the banner. In addition, we had a lot of help and supports from our Korean friends. They voluntarily helped us advocating Korean students to set aside some of their pocket money and contributed to Indonesian earthquake relief.
We printed out flyers, describing how the disaster in Indonesia took place and thousands are dead and wounded. Everyone passed by, we told him/her what was happening and ask their donations. Many of them were so kind-heartedly donated to our ‘black-box’ donation box, symbolizing the sad moments happening in Indonesia. We started our fund-raising in Jisan Library from Wednesday until Tuesday.
Thirdly, we had a dance performance during “Food Festival” in our school. It was such a coincidence that International Relation Office held an International Food Festival in the range of our fundraising period, and therefore, we could optimally use this moment. The International Relation Office provided a donation box for every visitor who wanted to contribute in the fundraising. Moreover, we had a dance performance to thank every donator participating in our fundraising, especially the president of Daejeon University who fully support our program. After the dance, Mr. Lim Yong-Cheol officially donated as representative of Daejeon University.
Indonesian Dance during fundraising
It was such an amazing moment for us. Despite the distance putting us away from our homeland, we could stand up and do real actions to help our people in Indonesia. 2.900.000 Won might be not much enough, but it shows how we really love our country and we could do real contribution toward our nations.
(This article was published in “Get Together” Magazine by Daejeon International Community Center [DICC], written by Ahmad Nasikun)
yang moto itu siapa kun?
anak indonesia juga, atau temen yg orang sana?