From Poyang, We Speak

A short training on public speaking

in eastern part of Sulawesi

Be dare to speak in public become everyone’s dream, including youth in Poyang village (district of South Balantak, Banggai, Central Sulawesi). They are aware that it will not be obtained without efforts. Their hope was not in vain because the students of Tompotika University through community service program in unit Poyang village facilitated them a short training on Public Speaking.

Located at Poyang village hall (22/3/2018), the activity was lively because 40 participants attended the event. Although this activity aimed to Poyang village youth, some older participants we’re not discouraged to come and learn together, some ‘elderly’ participants represented by Pranto Manuring, a chairman of village representatives board (BPD) of Poyang and Enta Pe'a, a church assembly member of Solafide Church at Poyang.

Participants’ Enthusiasm

Public Speaking was a topic that is rarely sounded among youth in rural Sulawesi. It was a new topic for them, so their enthusiasm was seen on their faces, listening to the material facilitated by Stenly Recky Bontinge, activist of Stube-HEMAT. Their enthusiasm was shown by their questions and one question asked by Sumartono Rabaelun, a question that represented most of the evening's participants was ‘how to overcome stage fright’ when performing speaking in public. This question was directly answered with some tips and ways to increase confidence. Not only theory, participants were also invited to practice. They came forward to introduce themselves each for one minute, in general they seemed shy and smiled while bowing down his/her head. The practice was aimed to apply the method of eliminating verbal graffiti, a habit of using unnecessary and repetitive words while speaking, such as eee .., mmm ..., anu ..., then ..., maybe ..., what ya .., etc. Actually, almost all participants did verbal graffiti. Being silent for few moment was the dominant verbal graffiti found that night. Seeing that situation the facilitator did not keep silent, but he also introduced himself, gave right example, used non-verbal techniques and of course without verbal graffiti.

No difference between city knowledge and village knowledge

So far public speaking has been viewed as an exclusive communication skills, ‘the knowledge of urban people’ but it is not true, as Yunius Bintang said, the Poyang village youth activist, ‘we are the backbone of Poyang Village, this knowledge is very important to support the progress of youth, by having good communication skills we have a guarantee to increase the human power resource in our village to a higher level. These practical skills can be applied directly in fellowship activities, village meetings or congregations, school and campus presentation, to be a Master of Ceremony and so on. So, there is no difference between city knowledge and a village knowledge, all of them are useful anywhere ".

Roslin Tangayo, KKN student from faculty of Economics UNTIKA as the event organizer said the same thing, "public speaking skills are very useful to improve my confidence. This activity also supports our KKN program which is based on one aspect of Tri Dharma college that is community service."

Two and a half hours passed, precisely at 21:30 WITA the training ended. Half-hour extra is still tolerable because they felt happy to gain new knowledge for self-improvement. Hopefully this positive activity will continue as a pioneer for a long way effort. (Diaspora Stube-HEMAT in Celebes - SRB).