Yogyakarta, July 13th 2024–Ana Kaporina Saharina, a student of the Department of Social Development and Welfare (PSdK) Fisipol UGM succeeded in winning 1st place in the National Student Debate in the Field of Environment organized by the National Capital Authority (Otorita Ibu Kota Negara/ OIKN) in 2024. Ana and her team, Hasan Adi Nugrah (Cartography and Remote Sensing, Faculty of Geography) and Razif Raihan Rasyid (Animal Science and Industry, Faculty of Animal Science) managed to bring home the champions after struggling throughout the competition process from 17 May to 14 June 2024.
“There are five selection processes. Starting from the file selection, essay selection, preliminaries, semifinals, and finals, which took approximately two months,” said Ana. Meanwhile, the final stage was offline in Samarinda, East Kalimantan on June 12-14. This debate competition organized by the IKN Authority raised environmental issues in the development process, development regulations, and sanitation in the National Capital City (IKN).
During the competition, Ana admitted that the biggest challenge was building her team’s chemistry. “Because our team was just formed before the competition, we tried to schedule intense meetings to build chemistry between our team,” explained Ana. However, Ana and the team always adhere to their motto that the toughest opponent is their ego, not the other people, so they need to control their ego.
“Especially when arguing, we often get disturbing interruptions, so the only thing we can control to hold up the argument is our ego,” continued Ana.
Throughout the selection process, Ana and the team practiced hard, did in-depth research, and shared strategies to strengthen arguments to prepare for the final session of the debate competition. This victory gave them a sense of joy and gratitude for being able to reach this point.
Apart from that, Ana has also been actively involved in debate competitions since she was in high school. Meanwhile, her other achievements as a PSdK student were proven by winning Favorite Champion in the National Climate Crisis Debate Competition held by Greenpeace Indonesia and BEM Universitas Indonesia back in 2021.