Gadjah Mada University, located in Yogyakarta Province, sent a student delegation to a community service program, namely the community empowerment program in Marsi Village, Kaimana Regency, West Papua Province. The program is planned to last for 50 days and requires students to empower the community through various development programs designed by them with the help of lecturers and the local community. To start the empowerment program, students need to find out about the most urgent needs and have a positive impact on the local community. Therefore, 50 days are considered sufficient to carry out the community empowerment program after the student delegates have previously conducted observations and also found out everything in Marsi Village.
The people who live in Marsi Village are indigenous people from the Mairasi Tribe. They have one source of clean water that is used for their daily activities. In addition, the community utilizes rainwater by collecting it in various containers. Access to clean water sources is one of the things that the student delegates from Gadjah Mada University pay attention to so that it is made a priority program in community empowerment. The creation of installations to facilitate access to clean water for the community, referring to clean water sources and rivers around the Marsi Village area, has begun to be socialized to the community.
One of the installations introduced to the community is a rainwater harvesting installation and rain filter, which is planned to be built several times so that it can be placed in various corners of the village. The benefit of having a rainwater harvesting installation and rain filter is to help the community in Marsi Village to make it easier to collect rainwater with containers that can also function as rain filters where the collected rainwater can be consumed directly without having to be cleaned first. This aims to overcome the difficulty of accessing clean water from water sources and also existing rivers. So far, people living in Marsi Village have obtained water by drawing from water sources or with containers filled in rivers. The presence of a rainwater harvesting installation and rain filter will make it easier for the community to obtain and consume clean water.
The Kaimana Regency Government hopes that the students delegated from Gadjah Mada University can extend their stay, namely more than the previously determined period of 50 days. Students who install rainwater harvesting and rainfilter installations are expected to empower the community to be able to use them according to the instructions for use and also carry out maintenance so that the installations can last a long time. In addition, the community is also taught how to make rainwater harvesting and rainfilter installations so that they can increase the number of installations to provide a positive impact that can be felt by the wider community.