Integrated Bali Village Competition

The Buleleng government organized an Integrated Village Competition program to increase the villagers’ relationships, togetherness, innate strength spirit and mutual cooperation and increasing the spirit of the villagers in developing their village. In this competition, nine sub districts in Buleleng, which were represented by one village in that sub districts, were evaluated by the regency jury team according to certain criteria. Those nine villages have been selected and strengthened intensively by the extension facilitator from sub district and sometimes accompanied by the integrated village team from the regency.

This year, the competition was started from Tigawasa village, the representative of Banjar sub district, on Tuesday, April 3, 2007. The evaluation was continued to Sulanyah village as the representative of Seririt sub district on April 9, 2007. Then Umejero village in Busung Biu sub district on April 11, 2007. Other villages that were evaluated by the regency jury team were Panji Anom village, the representative of Sukasada sub district, Tambakan village in Kubutambahan sub district, Tukad Mungga village as the representative of Buleleng sub district, Pejarakan village in Gerokgak sub district, Bungkulan village in Sawan sub district and the last, Bondalem village in Tejakula sub district.

When he conducted evaluations in each village, Buleleng regent, Putu Bagiada, as one of the regency jury team, reminded the villagers to keep the harmonious life and good relationship among the villagers, make the same understanding of vision and commitment, so that the villagers were hard to act under provocation. He added that the local government has a commitment to balance the development of the city and the villages. One of the proofs of the government’s seriousness was the government gave big amount of financial aid to the villages in Buleleng regency. This year, the aid was given through village aid fund, 200 million rupiah at minimum, not including direct and indirect aids, which might be given for certain cases. That 200 million should be managed well for the village development and the improvement of economic condition. The regent promised, next five years, each village would be given at least one billion rupiah through village allocation fund.

The head of Village Development Program, who was also the coordinator of this competition, Ketut Wijana, stated that this program was conducted to motivate the villagers to support the regional government’s programs. The intensive preparation has been done since six months ago. The head of villagers explained the villagers about the program, its purpose, and the way to compete to be the winner. The village’s safety was increased. The police, traditional security guard, and all the villagers worked together to maintain the sustainable safety in the village.

After evaluating all villages for this Integrated Village Competition, through serious meeting with full of consideration, the jury team decided Pejarakan village in Gerokgak sub district to be the first winner. The second winner was Bondalem village in Tejakula subdistrict, the third winner was Umejero in Busung Biu sub district, and Tambakan village in Kubutambahan sub district as the forth winner. It meant that Pejarakan village would be the representative of Buleleng regency in the same competition in provincial level.

Ketut Wijana said that Pejarakan village would be given strengthening and more intensive preparation in term of village administration, the implementation of Pancasila or basic principle of Indonesian’s ten basic programs of PKK or the family welfare program, the religious life, the relationship of the villagers, the health and cleanliness of the environment, and so on. He asked all villagers in Pejarakan village to support this program, so that in the evaluation which will be held on 6 June 2007, they can present the best presentation and become the winner.