The Regional Representative (RR) is the backbone of the Alumni Association (AA). AA presents a place for alumni to learn, to share, and to encourage each other for the betterment of society and surely for themselves.

Banjarmasin. Four weeks ago, Rijal [email: riyadi.mrijali@hotmail.com], the founder of this RR South Kalimantan group, heard that Kalimantan did not have a Regional Representative yet. Previously, Rijal didn’t know that VDMS has an Alumni Association. Then, on 09 June 2013, Rijal reactivated the group and changed the name of the group “VDMS Scholars” to VDMS Scholars (South Kalimantan). The group has 25 members, 14 members from Universitas Lambung Mangkurat (UNLAM). In this group also Universitas Tanjung Pura (UNTAN) students and alumni can be found.

RR South Kalimantan group focuses on gathering members, especially from UNLAM, online through social media (FB Group) and offline by contacting the alumni face-to-face. “The target of this group is to gather all the alumni in the Kalimantan Area within 3 months”, said Rijal. First on the agenda of this group is Alumni Gathering.  Then the launching of the Regional Representative of Kalimantan by holding an event with subjects aimed at caring for society generally and usefulness for alumni development.

This group was founded in 2010 as suggested by Pak Ardiansyah, Person In Charge (PIC) of UNLAM. In 2010, there were 8 members. The purpose of this group is to bring together VDMS grantees in UNLAM and to organize events. This group actually had planned an activity, but in the years 2010-2012 there was no activity at all, because most of members were busy and have graduated; from 8 members, only 3 stayed in Banjarmasin.  This was not only because of inactive members, but also because Rijal got an IELSP scholarship to go to USA. He left his study for a while. So his VDMS Scholarship was ended. He lost contact with the other members.

By reactivating the group, it is expected that the students and alumni in Kalimantan can hold an event as a VDMS family.