BUiLD Presents the Role of Universities in Building Disaster Resilience of Indonesian Communities

Jakarta, MINA – The Building Universities in Leading Disaster (BUiLD) Consortium presents the role of universities in building a disaster-resilient and responsive Indonesian communities.

BUiLD in its press statement on Wednesday, is a consortium formed by eight national universities and four foreign universities in 2019 to create a more disaster-responsive Indonesia.

The eight national universities are President University in Cikarang, Andalas University in Padang, Lambung Mangkurat University in Banjarmasin, Khairun University in North Maluku, Muhammadiyah University in Palu, Ahmad Dahlan University and the Islamic University of Indonesia in Yogyakarta; and the University of Surabaya in East Java.

Meanwhile, the four foreign universities that are members of the BUiLD consortium are the University of Gloucestershire (UoG) from the United Kingdom, Kobenhavns Professions (KP) from Denmark, Hafelekar (HAI) from Austria, and Instituto Politecnico do Porto (IPP) from Portugal.

In building the Indonesian society that is resilient and responsive to disasters, BUiLD, supported by the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education Fund from the European Union, has developed a number of ideas. Among other things, forming the Center of Excellence on Disaster Resilience (CEDRS), holding regular dialogues on disasters, holding Disaster Preparedness Days, conducting disaster simulations, developing educational media which is disseminated through various forms and channels, conducting community service activities, and others.

Meanwhile, the ideas developed by each of these universities are unique. This is because the location of each university is different, so the potential for disaster threats also varies.

For example, the President University campus is located in an industrial area, so the potential disasters faced are different from the Indonesian Islamic University (UII) or Ahmad Dahlan University (UAD) in DI Yogyakarta Province.

At President University (Presuniv) flooding has the potential to become a serious threat. That’s why Presuniv has prepared a team to anticipate various emergency conditions (emergency teams) that arise as a result of floods.

Meanwhile Ull and UAD developed a different strategy with a greater focus on handling the impact of disasters as a result of the eruption of Mount Merapi. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)