THE EDITOR – P3PD training has enabled Wiwin Ardiansyah, the Head of Lubuk Lawas Village, Batang Asam Sub-district, West Tanjung Jabung Regency, Jambi Province, to successfully resolve village boundary issues that had eluded her for years.
In a meeting with The Editor at the 2024 Outstanding Village and Kelurahan Awards Ceremony at the Ksirarnawa Building, Sanur, Bali, Wiwin explained that she finally understood how to resolve village boundary issues involving many parties and the preparation of village funds.
“Our village is a new village. We went through a transition from the old village to the new one, and that automatically means that the village boundaries are not yet clear. Through the P3PD training, we know how to resolve it,” she said on Tuesday (7/10/2024).
WHAT IS P3PD?
P3PD itself stands for Strengthening Village Governance and Development Programme.
It is designed to enable village officials to promote efficiency and effectiveness in the management of village funds and to strengthen institutional capacity and accountability systems, leading to improved quality of expenditure at village level.
WHAT DID WIWIN LEARN FROM THE P3PD TRAINING TO RESOLVE VILLAGE BOUNDARY ISSUES?
Wiwin admitted that she had found it very difficult to resolve the village boundary issue because of village customs that could not be overridden.
Village custom, she said, included ownership of the river that flows through Lubuk Lawas village.
The P3PD training, she said, finally made her understand how to easily resolve customary issues in the village by using the coordinates issued by the Geospatial Information Institution (BIG).
With this coordinate system, she can also avoid conflicts when demarcating village boundaries.
“We were taught to coordinate with other village officials. Usually, if you don’t know the system, it’s easy to have friction,” she explained.
After attending the P3PD training in late 2023, Wiwin immediately met the leaders of the villages bordering her village.
One of them was the Head of Lubuk Bernai Village, Batang Asam Subdistrict, Tanjung Jabung Barat District, Jambi Province.
One to note, Lubuk Lawas Village is bordered by Tanjung Bojo Village to the north, Taman Raja Village to the east, Lubuk Bernai Village to the south, and Suban Village to the west.
Lubuk Lawas Village itself covers an area of 76 hectares and has a population of 578.
Wiwin said that since she took office in 2019, she had never made a clear and measurable village boundary marker between her village and Lubuk Bernai Village. But the P3PD training gave her new ideas.
“We met traditional leaders, community leaders and religious leaders in Lubuk Bernai Village,” she said.
For almost two months, Wiwin met the traditional leaders of Lubuk Bernai Village to help the two villages understand the coordinates of their respective village boundaries.
She said she had learnt this method during her P3PD training to minimize the conflict that can arise, especially when villagers have lived in the area for hundreds of years.
“We come to the village almost every day. When we met them, they said that their ancestors lived there and they inherited the area. Even their ancestors’ graves are there, and they planted plants there. It was harus,” she
But eventually, through much deliberation, the issue of customs in her village and the neighboring villages was resolved. She even discovered a new historical fact, that their inhabitants still share the same ancestors.
VILLAGES MUST BE TECH-SAVVY
Director General of Village Development (Bina Pemdes) La Ode Ahmad P. Bolombo during the ceremony of Lomba Desa 2024 in Sanur, Bali (PHOTO: Elitha Evinora Beru Tarigan/THE EDITOR)
Director General of Village Development (Bina Pemdes) La Ode Ahmad P. Bolombo said he was pleased with the progress made after village officials received P3PD training.
This is because the initial aim of the training is to produce village-level leaders who will succeed in developing their own communities.
“If the village is enlightened (successful), then the region will be enlightened,” he said.
So far, village governments have not realized that they are part of the national government. As a result, they have not been able to adapt to the national work programmes set by the government.
If the village government succeeds in developing itself like the regional government, La Ode believes that in the future every village will be able to face digitized development. Translator: Khopipah Indah Lestari
