Tourism Awareness Group (or so-called "Pokdarwis" in Bahasa) is a community-powered group that focuses on energizing the village's potential in the tourism sector. Pokdarwis of Sumber Sumilir is a Tourism Awareness Group based in Sumberharjo Village, Prambanan Sub-district, Sleman Regency. This village is well-known for its two tourist destinations一Teletubbies Hill and Domes-shaped house一beside the lovely scenery because of the expanse of rice fields and greenery.
By setting a mission to reactivate tourism in this village that has been in a downturn caused by the pandemic for two years, Pokdarwis of Sumber Sumilir chooses a progressive approach accommodating friendly policy towards the environment. In doing so, Pokdarwis put the priority on community empowerment approach to rectify the existing environmental condition, hoping that it will attract tourists to come. That approach is assessed as a significant step in addressing unwell-managed waste.
Regarding that environmental issue, Pokdarwis of Sumber Sumilir precisely re-ignited tourism activities in Sumberharjo Village by upholding the environmental-motivated movement initiated by Andy Purnawan. Andy is a 'creativepreneur' specializing in a leather craft named "Kenandy." Kenandy steadily strengthens the circular economy vision by becoming a member of the Indonesia Consortium for Circular Economy (ICCE). Andy argued that the spirit of protecting nature has to be integrated with the community empowerment agenda.
Lack of waste management and environmental education in this village, Andy aims to improve these conditions. Tourism and a good environment are two things that should bolster hand-in-hand, Andy thinks. Therefore, Andy envisions that the tourist attractions in the Sumberharjo Village will be based on ecotourism一 a concept that combining local wisdom of rural life with natural tourist attractions. In general, the concept of ecotourism will be packaged through “Clean Village” activities.
Simultaneously, to achieve a better situation of tourism in Sumberharjo Village, Pokdarwis, presided over by Andy, has initiated concrete actions involving 18 sub-village in Sumberharjo in regard to collecting the waste by its types. Collaborating with Rapel Indonesia, this action has successfully launched three waste banks in Sumberharjo for the past four months, namely Cincing Jarik, Puspa, and Brilian Teletubbies.
Cincing Jarik, one of the excellent precedents of the bank of waste in Sumberharjo, has been running its business for the last three months. This waste bank consists of 10-12 households as its members. Every single member household in this waste bank is responsible for classifying wastes by their types on the level of family basis before storing them in a collecting point each month.
Beyond existing banks of waste, Andy and his team, on December 21st, 2022, also massively held a seminar about classifying inorganic waste in Sengir Sub-village. Marta Yenny, the representative of Rapel Indonesia taking a role as speaker, underlined that the bank of waste and its system will directly support circular economy practices to realize a cleaner environment and healthier people, exceedingly Sumberharjo is identified as a tourism village. To conclude, Andy also reaffirmed that this so-far action will get enough attention from various stakeholders to empower the tourism sector in Sumberharjo in the context of a post-pandemic recovery agenda.
