_{Me and my team}

I admit that I am not the brightest person among my friends on campus. In fact, feelings of inferiority often haunted me, especially in the early days of college. How could it not be? A child who comes from the suburban area, now determined to continue her higher education in someone else's city.

Even though it could be said that Banda Aceh is not a pretty huge city, at least it is a central location for most students who want to continue their education, especially those in the Aceh province and its surroundings.

Who would have thought that I would actually be part of the best ‘brilliant’ students at my university who were chosen as scholarship awardees from the largest state-owned oil and gas company in my country, Pertamina? This is where I met people who had a competitive spirit that I had never imagined before.

I was also surprised, "Why I, who has a crazy amounts of procrastinating level (as well as lazy), was lucky enough to be selected as several hundred awardees among thousands of other applicants from all over Indonesia." Without luck, I might never be here.

The awardees for this scholarship are called Pertamina Foundation Scholars (PFS). They are spread across several universities in Indonesia, and on average, the campus has around 10 to 15 PFS awardees. On my own campus, Universitas Syiah Kuala, the funding company itself admits that the PFS here is one of the best so far.

They are indeed great; some of them were chosen as best champions in the selection of outstanding students, became beauty pageant winners, anti-drug ambassadors, literacy ambassadors, and other ‘what the hell is that’ awards.

There are many things I have learned so far from the fellow awardees, especially about their activeness as environmental activists. The company that gave me the scholarship fund is a company that has a big mission towards the environment even though they operate in the energy sector. One of this company's missions is to develop renewable energy and mitigate climate change.

Therefore, as part of PFS, I was assigned to participate in becoming an agent of change in realizing energy and environmental sustainability through a program they named "Desa Energi Berdikari". Here I, along with fourteen other awardees, succeeded in passing the regional selection and received grant funds amounting to 100 million rupiah or around 6,000 US dollars.

So what are these funds used for?

These funds will be used to build a solar panel with a capacity of 1 kilowatt which will be installed on a remote island in Aceh. The island is called Pulo Aceh. There are several main reasons why we chose Pulo Aceh as the implementation location even though accessibility to get there is very limited.

_{A team of expert technicians in the process of assembling solar panels while accompanied by local village children}

Desa Energi Berdikari (DEB) at a Glance

This action is a form of service for the 10th batch of Pertamina Foundation scholarship recipients (PFS 10) in a series of events at the University's Independent Energy Village (DEB), Syiah Kuala in Pulo Aceh. The Independent Energy Village (DEB) itself is a program hosted by the Pertamina Foundation as the sponsor and funder. There are four aspects, the goals or aims of this program are energy, education, economics, and environmental aspects.

Educational and environmental aspects are the embodiment of DEB USK through beach clean-up actions, socialization of waste sorting and processing, and education of enthusiasm for learning for SMA Negeri 2 Pulo Aceh students. This is a real step in realizing environmental sustainability through students as the nation's next generation.

As I said previously, PFS Syiah Kuala University received grant funds to develop villages through renewable energy. We chose to build solar panels which are used as a means of charging batteries for fishermen. The reason is that most of the livelihoods of the people here are fishermen who fish at night. Their lighting batteries often run out when they are in the middle of the sea, so economically the presence of solar panels can be a solution to make the fishing process more efficient and get more results.

Apart from the economic aspect, we are assigned to carry out community empowerment as a side program. The awardees from various faculties and departments were divided based on their respective roles. For example, students from medical faculties are assigned to be coordinators of inspection activities for the local community. As a sociology student, I have been involved a lot with the community, starting from the needs assessment process, survey, implementation, up to the inauguration.

We had to go through several stages to arrive at the funding and implementation process. First, we had to go through the regional proposal selection process throughout Sumatra. Thankfully, the Syiah Kuala University team beat other partner universities in Sumatra so that we were entitled to receive the funding as promised.

The next stage is pitching or conveying the program idea that we have prepared. In the pitching stage, we again explain the ideas related to the program that we will implement later. After getting approval from the funding company, we can then start a series of other activities, starting from surveys, assembling solar panels, to community empowerment.

The following is a timeline table for Desa Energi Berdikari:

Timeline	Activity
Proposal Selection	October-November
Pitching	December
Implementation	January
Inauguration	June

The inauguration ceremony of the Desa Energi Berdikari took place on June 1 and was inaugurated directly by Prof. Dr. Ir. Marwan, rector of Universitas Syiah Kuala. All PFS awardees attended the event, including myself. This inauguration event was also attended by several higher education officials such as vice chancellors, deans of several faculties, and top officials from the Aceh Besar district.

Desa Energi Berdikari program is one of the activities that makes me worthy of being called an activist, none other than because this program invites me to get closer to the environment and to the community. Not everyone has the same opportunity as this, so I should be grateful for it and make the most of it.

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