Rumah Kearifan: Fostering the Value of Social Engagement in Chemistry Education Internship Students of UIN Sunan Kalijaga

Rumah Kearifan (House of Wisdom) Yogyakarta is an institution that focuses on empowering human resources through several programmes, including Training, Writing, Research, and Mentoring. These programmes are accompanied directly by Dr. Muqowim M.Ag and Ziadatul Husnah M.Pd as the founder and director of Rumah Kearifan. Besides the programmes above, Rumah Kearifan also cooperates with institutions or agencies at home and abroad, one of which is the Chemistry Education study programme of UIN Sunan Kalijaga. The form of cooperation with the Chemistry Education study programme is that it sends its students to carry out an internship programme at Rumah Kearifan.

I and nine other Chemistry Education students did an internship at Rumah Kearifan for approximately 40 days during the semester 4 break. We chose Rumah Kearifan because we were interested in several of its programmes. In addition, Rumah Kearifan also aims to improve the quality of soft skills through several activities, including the Living Values Education (LVE) Training and Petualang Muda “Bakti Rumah Kearifan untuk Negeri” (Rumah Kearifan's Service for the Nation).

The LVE training was held for three days from 28-30 July 2022. It was attended by eleven participants, mostly students of the Chemistry Education study programme. Besides those from Chemistry Education, there were participants from the Ushuluddin study programme of UIN SUKA and also a committee member of MI Al Mahad An Nur. The diversity of the participants and the beauty of the LVE training made me realise how important it is to bring life values to life.

Bringing positive values to life does not mean forming a new character but upgrading ourselves to become better. In the effort to maximise a better quality of life, Bapak Muqowim and Ibu Ziadatul always stressed bringing to life a positive atmosphere and energy wherever we are. They also underlined that the education training on bringing values to life, or LVE, cannot merely be talked about but must be done.

I also gained new experiences and things in the Petualang Muda activity, which was held for 11 days from 9-19 August 2022 in Pulutan village, Wonosari sub-district, Gunungkidul regency, with the theme Bakti Rumah Kearifan untuk Negeri (Rumah Kearifan's Service for the Nation). This activity had various programmes, including Living Values Education (LVE) Training, Goat Farming Training (feed reproduction & making compost), Values-Based Outbound Guide Training, a Workshop on Improving the Village Digitalisation Programme, Environmentally Friendly Education (Getting to Know Medicinal Plants; Managing Waste; Making Biostarter; Making Masks from Paper), Interpersonal Soft skill Training for Students, and Travelling. All of these programmes were aimed at the teachers and students of MI N 4 Gunungkidul, the students of SD Kanisius, the tourism awareness group (pokdarwis) of Pulutan village and the community in general.

Taking part in the Petualang Muda activities was of course a special source of pride for me and my fellow interns because it added to our experience in organisations and community life, and gave us the opportunity to apply knowledge and theory in the real world. Some of the things I can tell here are when I taught students at MI N 4 Gunungkidul, both general lessons and the Scout extracurricular, held tutoring sessions, and trained them for the ceremonies commemorating Scout Day and Independence Day. 

The whole series of internship activities at Rumah Kearifan did not, of course, let me escape the final internship assignment; on the contrary, that made me a different and better person at managing my time. Last but not least, I thank Rumah Kearifan (House of Wisdom) for giving me the opportunity to join, teaching me new things, and bringing me together with interesting moments and good people, making the internship very memorable. And then, my hope for Rumah Kearifan is that it will become ever more successful and always find things made easy in realising its planned activities. And that more interns from other universities will want to do their internships here.