Beyond Borders: What a Fishing Village in Indonesia Taught Me About True Community Engagement

By Hassan Amin, Junior at GU-Q, majoring in International Economics. He speaks English, Urdu, and Punjabi.

“I am from this village and will always remain so.” 

When a local diver told me this, despite having newly acquired construction skills that could earn him more money in Jakarta, I realized I had approached community engagement all wrong.

As part of Georgetown University in Qatar’s Community Engagement Program, I traveled to Indonesia expecting to make a difference. Instead, the community made a difference in me. Our journey began with three days in Jakarta, conversations at Georgetown Asia Pacific with Scott Guggenheim and Yuhki Tajima, walks through old Batavia exploring the remnants of five different colonizations, and visits to the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. But it was the four days that followed in a fishing village that truly transformed my understanding of what it means to engage with a community. 

Exhaustion became a companion as we painted houses, mixed cement, and worked alongside villagers. The days were long and physically demanding, but they were filled with conversations that challenged everything I thought I knew about development, service, and impact. 

I sat at a table with local fishermen and construction workers, asking them about their dreams. The diver who worked without professional equipment had just learned valuable construction skills. Surely, I thought, he’d want to move to the city for better opportunities. His response stunned me: he would always remain in his village. Around the table, heads nodded in agreement as I remained stunned by their instant response. 

I had come from Doha and Pakistan thinking I understood community, but I had never witnessed such profound attachment to place and identity. These weren’t people waiting to be saved, they were people deeply proud of who they were and where they belonged. 

Our host’s story remains etched in my memory. She smiled constantly, her energy infectious as she guided us through the project. But when she shared her journey—from a low-income household to education to climbing the corporate ladder—I saw the sacrifice behind the smile. And when she told us that the original visionary for this housing project had passed away before seeing his dream realized, tears filled her eyes. 

That moment crystallized something for me: genuine community engagement isn’t about swooping in to fix problems. It’s about honoring the people who’ve been doing the work long before you arrived and will continue long after you leave. 

One of our facilitators said something that fundamentally shifted my perspective: “The real engagement should ideally start when the trip ends.” 

I traveled to Indonesia thinking the impact happened during those four days of painting and building. But the real impact is what happens next, how I show up differently in my daily life, how I listen more carefully to people around me, how I approach my own community back home in Pakistan. 

Before this trip, I participated in the Doha-DC Dialogue, working with Martha’s Table and Bread for the City. I thought I understood service. But Indonesia taught me that community engagement isn’t about the hours you log or the houses you paint. It’s about genuine exchange, humility, and recognizing that the community often has more to teach you than you have to offer. 

I have a friend who dreams of opening a school in a rural area of Pakistan. After Indonesia, I understand her vision differently. It’s not about bringing education to people who lack it, it’s about creating spaces where communities can strengthen what they already have: their identity, their pride, their stories. 

The diver didn’t need to leave his village to have value. He already knew something many of us spend our whole lives searching for: exactly where he belongs. 

To the villagers who welcomed us, to our hosts who shared their struggles and dreams, to the facilitators who challenged our assumptions, terima kasih. You didn’t just let us serve you. You served us the most valuable lesson: true community engagement means being changed by those you aim to serve.