“I’m striving to preserve the culture of Sunda,” said Deden Wibawa. “People in West Java, especially in Bogor, have started abandoning Sundanese in daily conversation.”
Born in Bandung on June 8, 1970, Deden Wibawa has founded Kampoeng Belajar (Study Village), an NGO in Bogor engaged in the preservation of Sundanese culture. He has also written Sundanese-language worksheets for junior high school students in West Java titled Reka Basa (Language Composition), and produced CDs on Sundanese as a subject at schools.
“In 2005, I set up Kampoeng Belajar in an attempt to preserve Sundanese culture through school activity in West Java, particularly in Bogor. People are not using Sundanese in daily speech as much now. Unless serious efforts are made to maintain the regional language, no one will speak it. Moreover, almost 80 percent of Sundanese teachers in the region have no academic background, only around 10 to 15 percent are graduates of Sundanese literature,” he said.
Deden’s worksheets for junior high school (SMP) students are sold at Rp 3,500 (US 30 cents) per book in West Java. He does not compile worksheets for primary schools (SD) because they are already available. Those for senior high schools (SMA) will only go into print this year.
In 2007, Deden released two open-source CDs for teachers and students of SD, SMP and SMAs. One introduces Sundanese wayang (wooden puppetry) art and the other contains traditional Sundanese songs, poems and folk tales, each costing Rp 3,500.
The father of three is now working on the third CD titled Sundanese Characters, serving as a textbook of the old Sundanese alphabet used in the Pakuan Pajajaran kingdom era.
This CD, already verified and licensed by Pajajaran University, Bandung, is a professional rather than open-source product and sold at Rp 30,000 per disk.
“I’m selling the worksheets and CDs myself to all parts of West Java door to door. I have contacted Bogor’s city and regency education offices several times to cooperate in marketing these products but there has been no response yet,” said Deden, a graduate of Indonesian history from Pajajaran University.
To draw students’ interest to Sundanese language learning, the worksheets and CDs present various legends and different wayang characters, with Josh Groban’s songs and Kitaro’s compositions as background music.
This is the only language-learning medium of the kind used in the province.
Through Kampoeng Belajar, Deden provides the Sundanese-language learning medium to train teachers.
Some time ago this community in cooperation with Sindangbarang Cultural Village, Bogor, organized a festival of Sundanese culture with Sundanese poetry writing, storytelling and essay writing contests for SD, SMP and SMA students in Bogor city and regency.
In preserving the culture of Sunda, Deden is supported by his wife, W.S. Sukmawati, a Pajajaran University graduate of Sundanese literature now teaching Sundanese in Bogor schools.
She also assists Deden in compiling the subject of Sundanese characters into a CD.
“I enjoy my job very much and my goal is to set up a culture-based school in the future, which has
been initiated along with Sindangbarang village chief Mikami Soemawijaya. The school is expected to create citizens with advanced knowledge as well as a Sundanese identity. By focusing on its cultural diversity, the nation will be far richer than boosting sales of imitated cars,” added Deden.
Sundanese culture with its egalitarian character knows no gap between the authorities and commoners, as reflected in Sundanese poetry and bobodoran (amusing expressions).
A school established on a cultural basis would have no dividing walls between ethnic groups and religions either.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/04/14/deden-wibawa-on-a-mission-save-sundanese.html
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