Yanuarius Katmok, the First South Person as Head of Merauke Public Works Department

Yanuarius Katmok, ST, MT, on August 4, was entrusted by the Regent of Merauke, Drs. Romanus Mbaraka, MT is the Head of the Merauke Regency Public Works and Spatial Planning Office.

Yanuarius Katmok, who was born in Simiram Village, Waropko District, Boven Digoel Regency in 1969, is the first South Papuan son to serve as Head of the PUTR Office of Merauke Regency.

Met in his office on Friday (19/8), a graduate of Civil Engineering from Dharma Yadi Technical College (STITEK), a private university in Makassar, in 1999 told his bitter experience that the loser had become an orphan.

''I am a villager who migrated to the city, how can we adjust it to the existing education. I came from the village to Merauke in 1982. I was an orphan, when I saw it from the HR side. Why can foreign children be in civil engineering," he said.
 
Encouraged by that, he had the determination to be able to take the major even though his mother didn't go to school. "I have to go to school. With my mother's encouragement, I ran to Merauke and entered junior high school. I live independently and in the end graduated from STM Santo Antonius Merauke,'' he explained.

After graduating from STM, continued Yanuarius Katmok himself then in-laws to Makassar without being provided with money, only determination and courage to want to go to school. Arriving in Makassar, he entered a private university majoring in Civil Engineering and could finish in 1999.

''I was the first native of South Papua in Merauke at that time who graduated from the civil engineering major,'' he explained.

After returning to Merauke under the regent of Drs Johanes Gluba Gebze, he was encouraged to take part in an internship as a lecturer at ITS Surabaya. Therefore, the Merauke Regency Government collaborated with ITS to establish a university called advocacy. Where the advocacy is D3 Civil Engineering whose curriculum is 75 percent practice and 25 percent theory.

Departing from the background of D3 status, he sees at the same time as a Papuan child, he sees that it is impossible for this manufacturing D3 to be developed into a university or institute, except for a pure D3. "I'm trying to figure out how we can create a university college, so that it changes from a Manufacturing D3 to a purely civil D3," he said.

From the pure D3 emerged the Merauke S1 High School of Technology which was the forerunner to the establishment of the Musamus State University of Merauke. This means that Yanuarius Katmok is one of the figures who fought for the establishment of STTM Merauke to become the Musamus University of Merauke. And some of the works that have been carried out have been trusted by the Regent Romanus Mbaraka, MT as the head of the PUTR Office of Merauke Regency.
 
Departing from this history and life experience, Yanuarius invites the indigenous children of Southern Papua to dare to take engineering majors, even though it is difficult. “I myself come from the village, of course the educational facilities are far from the schools in the village. But I ventured to take this civil engineering major. We learn with other people then we know. If we don't learn, of course we don't know,'' he explained.

According to him, if you don't dare to take engineering majors, especially now that South Papua Province is in sight, then the question is who will sit or fill the South Papua Province Public Works Service.

''If you don't have the courage to start taking civil engineering majors, it's certainly not South Papuan children who will fill it. Likewise for the Southern leaders who will sit down to pay attention to the children of Papua,'' he added.

SOURCE: https://cenderawasihpos.jawapos.com/ Lintas-papua/merauke/21/08/2022/yanuarius-katmok-orang-selatan-pertama-jabat-kadis-pu-merauke/