Rumah Pintar Cendekia Surabaya was built on January 22, December 2009. Starting from the tsunami that occurred in Aceh moved the heart of former first lady Ani Yudhoyono who finally had the idea to build Rumah Pintar in all regions in Indonesia.
Before the presence of Rumah Pintar there was such a thing as Smart Motor which contained a book center to facilitate children who were victims of the Aceh tsunami, they lost many aspects such as shelter, schools to learn.
Therefore Mrs. Ani Yudhoyono was moved to create a smart motor that could go around every morning until evening to the refugee camp to entertain child victims to help distract them a little from the natural disasters that occurred and to rebuild children’s interest and enthusiasm for reading.
After operating the Smart Motor during the evacuation period, Mrs. Ani Yudhoyono stopped the operation because the evacuation period was over, but the enthusiasm of the children of tsunami victims was very large for the smart motor, so many children were sad and stopped the smart motor to leave because their job was finished.
Because of that, the former 6th first lady was moved to make Rumah Pintar, an idea that initially appeared to be built in Aceh to spread throughout Indonesia to have 524 Rumah Pintar centers. But before becoming a Rumah Pintar, the Smart Motor was developed into a Smart Car to make it bigger.
But it turned out to be the same, the change was not very effective for refugees in Aceh. Finally, only then did Mrs. Ani Yudhoyono decide to make a permanent Rumah Pintar.
Since the idea of Rumah Pintar, the government wants all departments/agencies to create a Rumah Pintar. This includes universities, the military, and others. However, of the 524 Smart Houses that are still operating today, there are less than 20.
The administrator of the Juanda Rumah Pintar explained that “For example, the Rumah Pintar owned by UB (Brawijaya University) has closed, even the Smart Car is not operating because there is no funding“. Likewise with others, the Rumah Pintar that is not operating now is because there is no funding, so they cannot continue.
However, if the administrator of Juanda’s Rumah Pintar says they are just not creative enough in processing the Smart House so that it can attract many visitors. “We must have new ideas” said the Rumah Pintar administrator. Because only relying on 5 centers will not be able to successfully reach many visitors.
In addition, there is one other reason why they can close is because at that time Mr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Mrs. Ani Yudhoyono did not leave knowledge about entrepreneurship or management knowledge to the Rumah Pintar.
This also happened to Rumah Pintar Cendekia Juanda. In 2014 the Juanda Cendekia Rumah Pintar became neglected, starting from the hole in the roof, lights and air conditioners that did not work, damaged yards and so on. Due to limited funds, Rumah Pintar Cendekia Juanda experienced a downfall that almost closed.
However, at that time the management of Rumah Pintar Cendekia Juanda did not despair, they looked for weaknesses of the Rumah Pintar at that time such as dark buildings, damaged entrances, if it rains it can flood, which ultimately makes visitors uncomfortable. Not only that, but there were no interesting things or activities because at that time it only relied on the park. But they decided to fix it.
They began to improve one by one starting from the management, the administrators there were invited to learn about good management science, invited to conduct a comparative study to Rumah Pintar Malang to find good references/ideas from there which would later be applied at Rumah Pintar Juanda.
“Finally, we fix it one by one. Starting from the management, how to provide marketing to visitors. But that’s not enough, we have to add other education that is not available in schools such as feeding animals. But it’s not like in a zoo, we educate it properly, not just buying food and directly feeding it, but we educate it first,” said the administrator of Rumah Pintar Juanda.
Through the education provided, children can respect God’s creatures well. In addition, other education can train children to be responsible and leadership.
Rumah Pintar Juanda also holds movie watching activities together at the computer center. But not just any movie, but educational movies that are not obtained at school or home. From this educational movie, children can get many things.
In the stage center, Rumah Pintar Juanda uses it to improve children’s interests and talents, such as coloring for elementary school and kindergarten children, learning to concentrate for junior high school children, and even providing state defense material for high school and college students.
A few weeks ago, the University of Papua (UNIPA) from the Indonesian Language Study Program provided material to children about how to read and increase reading interest in early childhood. Rumah Pintar Juanda also fulfills the needs of tourists, such as a canteen selling various snacks, fish therapy, playground, animal feeding education, and so on.
However, it still attracts 30% of tourists to visit. In the airplane museum at Juanda Naval Air Base, we can watch educational movies and also see airplanes landing right in front of our eyes. Not only that, we can also get into an airplane that has not been used.
Rumah Pintar Juanda also cooperates with several other tours such as the swimming pool which is located not far from Rumah Pintar Juanda, UMKM as food catering, the marine museum, and also the central museum in Perak also cooperate with Rumah Pintar.
After completing the facilities and cooperating with several parties, Rumah Pintar is increasingly flooded with visitors up to 3,000 visitors on holidays and 1,000 visitors on weekdays. This made Rumah Pintar rise from its critical period after Covid-19 attacked.
The hard work of the smart home management team has yielded satisfying results, visitors are increasing every day and the smart home economy is getting better.
Authors:
- Nala Cahya Maharani
- Farah Putri Insyira Abidan
- Salsabila Yoga
English for Business and Professional Communication Student, UPN “Veteran” East Java
Editor: Salwa Alifah Yusrina
Bahasa: Rahmat Al Kafi
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