The Eco Bhinneka Program for Watershed Residents in Pontianak

The JISRA (Joint Initiative for Strategic Religious Action) program, managed by the Central Board of Muhammadiyah, has been supported by the West Kalimantan Regional Board of Muhammadiyah. In West Kalimantan, this program is led by Octavia Shinta Aryani. Currently, she serves as the Chair of the West Kalimantan Regional Board of Nasyiatul Aisyiyah, as well as the Regional Manager for JISRA Muhammadiyah West Kalimantan. She will be fully responsible for the implementation of this 4-year program, an initiative designed collaboratively to build harmony among residents in caring for the ecosystem in the watershed area of Pontianak City. Shinta, in her daily life, is a Batch 1 “Guru Penggerak” (Mobilizing Teacher) at a Muhammadiyah School in Pontianak City. She has extensive experience in mobilizing citizens to cooperate with the government, religious figures, and the community.

Through the JISRA program, Muhammadiyah is expected to be able to improve the quality of the ecosystem in Pontianak’s watershed area. Improving only the physical quality of the environment is considered insufficient. It must be accompanied by an increase in the quality of harmony and togetherness among residents in their daily lives, despite differences in ethnicity, religion, skin color, race, and social or religious organizational affiliations. Improvement on these two fronts will become a shared goal, so that residents can grow and develop into a spiritually and physically healthy community.

The board of Muhammadiyah West Kalimantan will work intensively with residents to realize this hope. They will sit together, conduct mapping, and develop various activity agendas so that this goal can be achieved. In practice, Muhammadiyah will approach the City Government, FKUB (Forum for Religious Harmony), and community leaders. Their involvement in various workshops, trainings, and mentoring alongside the “Sahabat Eco Bhinneka” (Friends of Eco Bhinneka) is essential.

Muhammadiyah has sufficient capital to realize this aspiration. Internally, the JISRA Program has received support from the Regional Board of Muhammadiyah. External support has also been obtained from the West Kalimantan Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), as well as several religious leaders, such as from the PGI (Communion of Churches in Indonesia), the Archdiocese, Walubi (Representatives of Indonesian Buddhists), PHDI (The Indonesian Hindu Dharma Council), and Matakin (Supreme Council for the Confucian Religion in Indonesia).

Challenges will always be found in the implementation of any idea. One of them is how to slowly and systematically soften the individualistic culture of Pontianak’s citizens. They are indifferent to the frequent threat of violence committed in the name of religion. This threat has the potential to damage harmony and peace within the society.

The holders of the JISRA Program for the West Kalimantan Region are optimistic that in the next 4 years, this program can bring about gradual change. The ecosystem in the watershed area of the work region will improve. In addition, the quality of harmony and togetherness among the citizens who benefit from this program will also be better.

The indicators of change that are optimistically expected to be realized by the end of this program in West Kalimantan are as follows:

• Citizens benefiting from the program will be able to have better sensitivity and care for their surrounding environment, both for the physical living environment and the spiritual environment among followers of different religions.
• Citizens will be more concerned with preventing potential conflicts that could lead to violence in the name of religion. They will strive to build a culture of deliberation, prioritize dialogue and encounters, and always seek confirmation when addressing threats to harmony.
• Citizens will build an early warning system to respond to threats to harmony and environmental destruction that may occur in their surroundings.
• Citizens will always cooperate intensively with fellow residents, religious and community leaders, and the government in responding to issues that could damage their values of harmony and their living environment.