Yellow Jackets on Diplomacy: How we were began
To be useful, get yourself high, and bow dow to the society where you came from.
Prelude
In the late 2000s, the world of International Relations was started to be more well known to the students of Universitas Indonesia. Particularly, one of the most competitive event known as the Havard National Model United Nations (HNMUN) was getting an agreement with the UI’s official to sent delegates for their events. This also, sparked the interest of UI Students to learn more about the mechanism of the diplomacies the diplomat use on the global stage. And also, that agreement also triggers the students to establish their own MUN society, known as the UI MUN Club.
In another realm but on the same page, English Debate Society (EDS) was already exist to provide not only general understanding of the debate, but also give new knowledge regarding the nature of the topic given itself. Which, also contributed to the general understanding on the world of diplomacy too.
With those, surely the students are eager to learn about diplomacies and international relations. However, such knowledge is usually applicable to the international journals or the studying materials used for studying in the IR class only. In which, the practice will never be well known to the general public.
Therefore, the vision to ‘earthen’ the International Relations from complex textbook to understandable action is very needed for the larger mass.
And this vision was captured and used by Dr. Dino Pati Djalal to create and establish what we known today as the Foreign Policy Community Indonesia (FPCI). FPCI itself was created in 2014. But, to strengthened up the scope of the knowledge of International Relations to the general public, FPCI decided to establish the Campus Chapter Program to help it’s vision for the common university students in Indonesia.
And from that, Chapter Universitas Indonesia was among the first whom established.
Establishment
Back on October 28th, 2015, Dr. Dino Pati Djalal came to the Universitas Indonesia in order to give speech in the event of “Dubes Ngampus Sehari.” Along with the audiences who came to participate, several International Relations students helped the creation of event, and that event also become the “inauguration” of the newly-created FPCI Chapter Universitas Indonesia Which signed by the Dr. Dino himself and the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Science.
After the chapter was created back in December 2015, on February 3rd, 2016, both FPCI and also 18 Undergraduate students from International Relations, Universitas Indonesia has attended “Diplomasi Bakso” held by FPCI itself. After the event, Dr. Dino Pati Djalal gives us the green light to officialy establish the FPCI Chapter Universitas Indonesia.
The Terms
On 20 February, 2016. The FPCI Chapter Universitas Indonesia has been finally established after the Team Building Event. With the first Executive Director, Mr. Abid Abdurahman Adonis, The 2016 Cabinet has created and ran events such as Career Coaching, Tea Time to the Embassy of Poland and Hungary. Also, during the October of 2016, FPCI UI also helps the first estabilishment of FPCI Chapter Gathering, which was successfully held in Depok, Indonesia. The end of the cabinet saw the events of Diplomatic Series, held in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia.
After the end of Mr. Abid Abdurrahman Adonis’s Cabinet, the next cabinet of FPCI UI was successfully passed to Ms. Alfi Naufida Ulinuha. And soon, the new, and freshly made FPCI UI Cabinet 2017 was born. This year, FPCI UI has signed a MoU with University of Edinburgh to conduct a comparative study there. And also, FPCI UI held new and recurring events such as Tea Time with Ambassador, Refugee Care, FPCI National Gathering, and many more. In addition, FPCI UI makes appearance in several events such as Conference of Indonesian Diaspora, Asia Pacific Conference from Students for Liberty, Coference on Indonesian Foreign Policy 2017, and several others.
The passing of the 2017 Cabinet to the 2018 was succesfully transfered to Mr. Fakhri Rizky Farros Muhammad, which is the first Executive Director coming not from International Relations. Together with the new Tagline ‘Beyond Boundaries!’ The Chapter intiates more control over the past events, and also help strengthened the internal business process. Also noted that at this time more and more university chapters are coming to the scene, in which the FPCI UI helped them in their establishing.
What’s Next?
For now, that FPCI UI is always keep on nuturing its members and innovating with its events to help not only both the members and also the students of UI, but also working together with the similar organizations to help boost the chapter to reach its goal.
Therefore, your hand and mind is very needed to help the society understand our nation’s role in the global scale of politics, economics, and more! Goodluck, and godspeed!
Written by Fakhri R. Farros, Executive Director of the FPCI UI 2018
