As Part of the Village Development Program, the Faculty of Engineering at Unhas Distributes Hand Washing Machines to the Community
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Faculty of Engineering (FT) at Hasanuddin University, in collaboration with the Student Affairs and Alumni Division, launched the Bina Desa Program as a form of community service.
The Village Development Program is a grant from the Director General of Higher Education at the Ministry of Education and Culture, offered annually to student organizations to play a role in community empowerment. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Village Development grant program for each faculty at Unhas has been reoriented into the COVID-19 Thematic Village Development Program.
The Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Alumni, and Partnerships at the FT Unhas, Ir. Mukti Ali, ST., MT., Ph.D., explained that the FT Unhas Village Development Program is focused on activities to help the community prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this initiative, the FT Unhas has adopted the theme “Manufacturing Foot-Pedal-Operated Hand Wash Stations and Promoting Proper Handwashing Techniques.”
“The Faculty of Engineering at Unhas, in collaboration with the Hasanuddin University Faculty of Engineering Student Organization (OKFT-UH), formed a team to build manual hand wash stations using simple foot pedals. These devices were then donated to several public locations in Gowa Regency,” explained Mukti.
Mukti added that a total of four hand washers will be distributed as part of this Bina Desa initiative. In the first phase of distribution, one unit was delivered to the Moncobalang Community Health Center in Barombong Subdistrict, Gowa Regency, on Thursday, April 23, 2020.
The remaining three hand washers will be distributed to the Community Health Centers in Bontomarannu Subdistrict, the Bontomarannu Police Station, and the Harun Ar-Rasyid Mosque in Bontomarannu, Gowa Regency.
Ir. Mukti Ali, ST., MT., Ph.D., hopes this initiative will educate the public about healthy living habits so they can prevent and break the chain of COVID-19 transmission.
After distributing the student-made hand washers to the community, the Bina Desa activity continued with an awareness campaign on proper handwashing techniques.
The Unhas Faculty of Engineering’s Bina Desa program began on Wednesday, April 22, 2020, and is scheduled to run through Thursday, April 30, 2020, in Gowa Regency.