Berita

UMY Students Volunteer to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic

Health workers are at the forefront in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the lack of health workers in Indonesia is still a barrier. To that end, the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) in collaboration with the Indonesian Medical Student Senate Association (ISMKI) is raising voluntary support from students to work together to help the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic through a volunteer program.

As many as 15,000 health and non-health students from various universities participated in this volunteer program, including students of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FKIK), of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. Of the four study programs at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, a total of 24 students took part in this volunteer program. Among them were Kevin Danudoro from the 2017 Medical Education Study Program, M. Romzi Nabil Agustam from the 2019 Dentistry Education Study Program, and Arif Aynul Hakim Adil from the Pharmacy Study Program in 2017. The three students were contacted by the UMY Public Relations Bureau team on Monday (30/3) who explained about the training and tasks they will carry out as volunteers.

In this volunteer program, there are several fields for participants to choose from, namely Communication, Information and Education (IEC), tracking, screening, and patient management. However, health student volunteers in accordance with their competencies were directed to choose the fields of Communication, Information and Education (IEC). Kevin Danudoro explained that in carrying out his activities, he and his fellow student volunteers played a role in spreading online education and information acquisition. “As has been recommended by the government to do work from home, we performed this IEC online, so students do not need to be deployed directly to hospitals that need it because it has not become our competency yet,” he said.

Currently, students who register as volunteers are still undergoing training provided by the Directorate General of Higher Education, the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Indonesian Lung Doctors Association, and other experts. “So far we have received 3 training sessions with various materials. We do not know how long the training sessions will take before we are deployed as volunteers,” added Arif Aynul Hakim.

M. Romzi expressed his motivation to join this volunteer program. “I want to be able to benefit others because the best people can benefit their surroundings, especially now that Indonesia is experiencing a global crisis that we should face together. And I, as a student, want to take part in facing this crisis “.

In line with what Romzi said, Arif and Kevin also claimed that their participation in this volunteer program was to contribute to their environment and also apply the knowledge they gained during their studies in health sciences. The parents of the three students also allowed to participate in volunteer activities on the condition that they be responsible for what they chose and could take care of themselves. (ays)

Share This Post

Berita Terkini

Kategori