THE EDITOR – One got more courage to develop marine potential in the village after participating in the Village Governance and Development Strengthening Programme (P3PD) training.
This time, The Editor will take you to Oba Village in North Oba Sub-district, Tidore Islands City.
The village head in this region recently won the PKAD (Village Apparatus Capacity Building) Regional IV Exemplary Village Competition as the 1st National Champion. Covering Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and Papua, the competition was organized by the Directorate General of Village Development (Pemdes) of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Sabtu Kene, Head of Oba Village, admitted that he is now more confident in developing the beach tourism area around the village.
The beach is called Muara Oba Beach. It has views of Tidore and Ternate islands and was once used as one of the images on Indonesia’s Rp1,000 currency.
“After participating in the P3PD training, I thought more and more about developing beach tourism,” said Sabtu Kene to The Editor.
One of the inputs he implemented from the P3PD training was to add entertainment tours that previously did not exist at Muara Oba Beach.
“Now we have banana boats and a cafeteria,” he explained.
Not only that, he continued, the training also made Oba Village Government officials feel more passion for doing what they were doing.
As a result, the beach tourism area of Oba Village is getting busier and the community is also happier because some of them are invited to develop culinary tourism on the beach.
“Innovation is important. (Officials) have started to understand,” he said.
This made Sabtu Kene very happy. He remembers the condition of the beach which does not have many entertainment attractions due to the lack of knowledge of the officials.
He then recognised the P3PD training as a valuable opportunity to learn about how to develop the area and increase the capacity of his village officials.
“This beach is one of the village assets that will be developed optimally. And of course it will support the PADes (Village Original Income) while having an impact on the community,” he said.
OBA VILLAGE HEAD WANTS TO DEVELOP THE VILLAGE BEACH AREA INTO A TOURIST DESTINATION
Sabtu Kene said that since taking office as village head in December 2019, he has had a vision and mission to develop beach tourism.
In his village, he continued, there is indeed a swimming pool tourist destination. However, the beautiful beach area has not been developed optimally so far.
“We outlined it in the local government work plan,” he said.
So far, only 30 per cent has been developed for Muara Oba Beach tourism. For its development, a village budget of Rp300 million has been used. It is estimated that the total cost of developing this beach will be more than Rp1 billion.
THERE IS ALREADY AN INCOME EVERY MONTH
Although a new tourist attraction, Muara Oba Beach has generated an average income of Rp7 million per month since July 2024.
According to Sabtu Kene, people are very enthusiastic about enjoying a holiday on the beach because it has many entertainment options and the culinary offerings are also delicious.
“The P3PD training sharpened my vision and mission,” he said.
