On February 21st 2018, Forum Lenteng in collaboration with Gubuak Kopi Community (one of Forum Lenteng’s networks in Solok, West Sumatra, that is involved in the activities of AKUMASSA Program) held the launching of a book entitled Sore Kelabu di Selatan Singkarak (2018) by Albert Rahman Putra. Since 2008, Forum Lenteng has implemented AKUMASSA Program to respond issues about media and practices of journalism, as well as media conglomeration phenomena, both in local, national and global scope. By emphasizing media literacy and citizen journalism as its knowledge base, the program focuses particularly on issues of education and community-based media empowerment, framing socio-cultural issues through citizen perspectives, and actively organizing workshops with local communities in various areas to produce local knowledge needed by local communities. In 2013, as part of this program, Forum Lenteng published a book, entitled Kajian Terhadap Sajian Informasi Media Massa Lokal Melalui Lima Kategori Isu (Good Governance, Hak Asasi Manusia, Perempuan dan/atau Anak, Kriminalitas, dan Lingkungan Hidup) dari Perspektif akumassa (Jakarta: Forum Lenteng, 2013) produced through a research project Rekam Media: Pemantauan Media Berbasis Komunitas, in collaboration with 10 citizens who are encouraged to be researcher/ observant/ reviewer of mass media news content. In 2014, Forum Lenteng initiated AKUMASSA Bernas Program as continues development of AKUMASSA Program; inviting three selected writers who have attended a series of AKUMASSA workshops to be encouraged to produce an in-depth series of writing about an issue. Albert Rahman Putra, founder and also member of Gubuak Kopi Community which is one of the network communities of AKUMASSA, is one of the writers from Solok who participated in this AKUMASSA Bernas Program. He raised environmental and social issues around Lake Singkarak. Sore Kelabu di Selatan Singkarak is the first printed publication from AKUMASSA Bernas series. This book contains a collection of Albert’s writings about Lake Singkarak, which half of it have been published earlier at www.akumassa.org. In Sore Kelabu di Selatan Singkarak, Albert captures fragments of events and stories that occured around Lake Singkarak. He observed this situation since 2010 which was later framed into 11 writings. Those issues include the condition of environment, dispute of citizen, existence of the mine and its impacts to the social condition of the community, policy and the response of locale government, as well as the colonial inheritance trade route through the tracing of archives since 1818. This book is a reflection of a local citizen who seeks to auto-criticize his own community; envisioning the impacts that will come twenty or thirty years from where the real events are happening in the present around Lake Singkarak. The book launching of Sore Kelabu di Selatan Singkarak was held in Kobik Koffie, Jl. Olo Ladang, Padang, West Sumatera. Otty Widasari (Program Director of AKUMASSA who is also one of the book’s editors) and Esha Tegar Putra (literary critics from West Sumatra) are the two panelists who discuss that book in a discussion moderated by Andini Nafisika (literary activist in Shelter Utara, Padang). Year Padang, Indonesia
2018
The Launching of Sore Kelabu di Selatan Singkarak
