The intolerance towards ethnicities is a problem increasing at a dangerous rate in social media. This is the concern fueling a Campaign Project executed by three Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) Communication Science – Public Relations students, Clarita (2016), David Gunarso (2017), and Elizabeth Lius (2017). Their attempt landed them in 1st place in the PRAHASTA (Pertempuran Humas Nusantara) category in Ajisaka 2018 held in Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) Yogyakarta, on November 2-3, 2018.

The three students admitted that the knowledge and skills they obtained in the university, as well as critical thinking skills, are keys towards bringing home the trophy. Not only getting first place, the UPH team also took the ‘Best Presentation’ title in this competition.

“There’s no doubt that we won because of all the soft skills we had practiced in class. We learned a lot from courses such as PR Campaign, Pop Media and Culture, presentation techniques, Public Speaking, Mass Communication, and Desktop Publishing. In addition, in UPH we are always demanded to think creatively,” Clarita, David, and Elizabeth explained.

This competition requires all its 40 participants to be Governmental Public Relations agents voicing a campaign against intolerance in form of a proposal and presentation. The participants can campaign against any intolerance they feel strongly about.

“We first came across this ethnicity intolerance on Facebook. Here, we realized that intolerance can grow into a huge problem just through social media, and this is certainly a red flag. We believe that ethnicity, or race, is one of the things that define Indonesia, and therefore demands protection. We then decided to act as Governmental Public Relations agents and started do our research,” Clarita told of the process.

Clarita and her team then made a proposal and campaign presentation with the tagline “Indonesia Baik untuk Semua” (Indonesia is Friendly for Everyone).

“We started the campaign through Instagram, seeing that it’s one of the most prominent social media. We made infographics, facts, and presented visual information about ethnicity intolerance. Then, we designed the main event – we made a competition that urges students, as millennials, to participate, and we named it ‘Terasi – Tebas Rasa Intoleransi’ (Eradicate Intolerance). In this competition, participants are presented with case studies and will be asked to propose a solution to the problem using facilities identical with the millennial era. This is what we proposed. And this is what brings us to victory,” Elizabeth said.

The proposal won UPH a place in the top 5. All participants in the top 5 are required to present their proposal in front of the judges, namely the CEO of Media Buffet PR, Bima Marzuki; UGM Communication Science Lecturer, I Gusti Ngurah Putra, and the Head of Biro Komunikasi Dan Layanan Informasi (the Bureau of Communication and Information Services) of the Ministry of Finance Nufransa Wira Sakti. The presentations are then scored and UPH came out first, with Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta as the first runner-up and Universitas Indonesia as the second runner-up.

Clarita, David, and Elizabeth agree that this competition really benefits them as Communication Science students.

“In our classes, we learn about concepts, gain knowledge, and analyze case studies. Through competitions such as this one, we can apply everything that we know and make it into a product. It really helps that UPH has been pushing us to be able to think creatively, to be disciplined with our deadlines, and to execute good presentations. Also, because all three of us are involved in the Research and Development division in our Student Council, we are well-equipped for these kinds of competitions,” David explained, with the approval of Clarita and Eli.

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