Prihandoko Saputro, President of PERMIQA
Serving as umbrella organization for around 50 different groups, the Indonesian Community Association in Qatar (PERMIQA) plays a major part in unifying the community and its president Prihandoko Saputro believes its role will even be more relevant in the coming years.
Speaking to The Peninsula, Saputro said since its founding PERMIQA has functioned mainly as coordinating body for the various organisations in the Indonesian community which range from hobby and sports to arts and culture, among others, which prove how active the community is in different events and activities within the community and in the country.
“Our task is for coordination and communication between the community, the embassy and other bodies in Qatar like Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) and the Ministry of Interior (MoI). Whenever there is activity which involves our community, let’s say from the MoI during the Qatar National Day and National Sport Day, they usually contact PERMIQA and we do the coordination in our community to make it easier,” he said.
PERMIQA office bearers are elected every two years and Saputro has been leading the group for a year now.
“We have lots of activities like sports tournaments such as football, volleyball and badminton. We also prepare for cultural performances for different events hosted in major venues around the country like in Katara, Aspire and on Qatar National Day in Lusail Sports Arena,” he explained.
In addition, the association also coordinates with other entities such as Fanar, Awqaf and Qatar Charity during religious events like those held during the holy month of Ramadan.
Being under the aegis of the Indonesian Embassy, PERMIQA works closely with the embassy in carrying out their activities and events.
“We coordinate closely with the embassy. We inform them whenever we have activities because it is very important for the embassy to know about our activities, and also they can assist us in case we need help,” he said.
Saputro considers unifying the Indonesian community together through the various events and activities as PERMIQA’s major achievement.
“We have done many events and activities including those for children, which help bind our community together. And also it is very important in preparation for the upcoming World Cup 2022. We had a workshop with SC and we relayed the information to the community,” he added.
PERMIQA was also instrumental in the success of the overseas voting for Indonesian General Elections last Friday conducting information dissemination campaign during events to encourage more Indonesians in Qatar to vote months before the elections which Saputro considered “a very important and historic event for Indonesia as a nation.”
On how he envisions the future of PERMIQA a decade from now, he said: “I see PERMIQA play a major role in our community and becoming more important and relevant because in three years we will have a big event in Qatar which is the World Cup so we have to prepare for it. Also with Qatar National Vision 2030, we can expect the country to witness a lot of development and progress in the next ten years in which we are active participants too.”
