Yogyakarta –This annual program will be attended by 5 universities from 5 different countries. Indonesia will be represented by UPN “Veteran” Yogyakarta, China by Communication University of China, the Philippines by Santo Tomas University, Japan by Kanda University of International Studies and Thailand by Chulalongkorn University.

d’CATCh will be opened in the Seminar Room of FISIP (Faculty of Social-Politics Studies) of the UPN “Veteran” Yogyakarta campus on Monday morning, and in the evening of the same day a welcome dinner was held for all the participants. This year’s d’CATCH will be attended by 98 students and 8 lecturers from abroad. As the host, Indonesia will be represented by 21 students, Thailand by 29 students, China by 23 students and the Philippines by 13 students and Japan by 7 students.

These participants are going to conduct discussion and collective production, with the theme called “Now”.  This grand theme is divided into smaller themes called “city”, “spirit”, “energy” and “Asia”, respectively. Every group form each country will be engaged in the process of the production of a documentary video in tandem with students from a different countries.

The Indonesian team is ready for this program. They have prepared videos with five-minute duration, related to the theme. These videos illustrate Indonesia with its specific culture and its people’s typical problems. For example, the video produced by the “energy” team portraits the life of Sultan’s servants (abdidalem) at the Yogyakarta Sultanate Palace (Kraton).  The City team’s video tries to illustrate just how oblivious Indonesians can be toward the environment and prefer drowning themselves into busily playing games or social media. Panji Dwi Ashrianto, M.I. Kom, the Project Leader of d’CATCH 2017, says that this program will become the opportunity for the participating students to express their opinions on the phenomena taking place around them.

On the other hand, Dr. Subhan Afifi, the Dean of Department/Faculty of Communication Studies, says that through d’CATCH, students are expected be critical and, at the same time, more emphatic individuals. “This d’CATCH is focused on how to create collective understanding among the countries. With their different cultures, these students will work together in the production team”, Dr. Subhan Afifi, the Dean of Communication Studies of UPN ”Veteran” Yogyakarta describes.

Serving as the host for the first time, Subhan hopes that this program having been held since 2003 will be able to benefit a lot to the department/faculty, in particular with regard to foreign (international) cooperation. According to Subhan, there are a number of ideas to be considered in this meeting, for example the collective research, which becomes the Faculty’s main concern. “The opportunity to conduct collective researches is one of our intended programs, as it does not only benefit the lecturers but student exchange programs may also be realized as what we have in so far done with the Faculty of Communication Art of Chulalongkorn University, he adds.

d’CATCH 2017 will be closed on February 11th , with the final presentation of each group, taking place in Grhatama Pustaka Audiovisual Room and a farewell party to be held in the evening.