Arek Suroboyo Festival at the Junior High School Level

The growth of the creations and skills of Indonesia's young generation, especially students, goes hand in hand with the times, such as developments in the fields of technology, information and education. This can be seen from the quality and quantity of young people who have positive potential power and participate in various international and national competitions in achieving optimal achievements. This potential ability of the younger generation is one of the human resources that should be controlled and directed, so as not to be carried away by harmful cultural influences. Various forms of government efforts in anticipating this have been realised in the form of socialisation, supervision from schools, competitions, art performances and exhibitions. The Surabaya local government has supported the government's efforts by holding the "Arek Suroboyo Festival at the junior high school level", on 17-19 February 2023 at the Main Atrium, Grand City Mall Surabaya, with various competitions and attractive prizes.

This festival has attracted the attention of various schools, both public and private, where 54 junior high schools have participated. Various competitions have been organised by the Principal Work Conference (MKKS) SWASTA SMA SURABAYA CITY, including: traditional creation dance, modern dance, hadrah, story telling, choir, E-Sport and Band. To take part in the competition, the school must select and prepare the participants (students), who have the ability in accordance with the field of competition to be followed. In addition, the participants must attend a technical meeting for all competitions in order to know the rules of the competition. On 6 February 2023, the participants took number of contestants, according to the competition being followed, at Dr. Soetomo High School, starting from 10.00 WIB - until completion. On this occasion, Santo Yosef Junior High School took a good opportunity by participating in the story telling competition, which was represented by one of the junior high school students named Gracia Rigel Belladona from class 9A. Various preparations were made, starting from story selection, equipment and location checks. The title of the story telling story taken was BABA YAGA, which is a very famous story from Russia. The implementation time for Story Telling is limited to 7 minutes.

At the time of implementation, the Head of the Surabaya and Sidoarjo Education Branch Office (Kacabdin), Mr Lutfi Isa Anshori, officially opened the festival, and it is hoped that it can be held every year on a regular basis to explore the achievements and potential of each school. In addition, this opportunity can be a potential motivator for schools to explore the potential of students from generation to generation. The atmosphere of the festival was very lively and visited by various groups and became a place to attract attention for other young people to take part in the festival on other occasions. The festival competition was coloured with attractions and stunning abilities of the participants, to show their best abilities and bring the name of the school. The judges were careful and careful to see and assess the ability of the contestants, in accordance with the provisions of the race that had been explained in the technical meeting session, one of which was during the story telling competition. The story telling competition is one of the competitions, which requires the ability to bring a story in English correctly, starting from pronunciation, grammar and fluency in accordance with the content of the story. In addition, the story telling participants must also be able to express the character of each character, both voice and behaviour in accordance with the situation of the story. The story telling competition was attended by 21 participants with various stories, ranging from national and international stories. 

After various competitions have been completed, followed by an announcement session on 19 February 2023, located at Grand City Mall at 18.30 WIB. The atmosphere that day was really crowded, starting from the local government, schools, students, parents and visitors, also watched the announcement session, which was interspersed with several performances from students, such as songs and music bands. After that, came the much-anticipated announcement that in the story telling competition, Santo Yosef Junior High School came in first, followed by SMPN 6 in second place and Gloria 1 Junior High School in third. It can be concluded, that the success achieved is a form of solid cooperation between the school and the family, where there is communication and mutual support.

In this festival activity, we can take some important points, among others:

1. As a young generation, especially students, we must be able to optimally explore the potential we have and develop it in accordance with our abilities, norms (rules), reasonable consideration and discipline, in order to provide optimal results.

2. The participation of schools and families is a continuous rope of love, care and nurture in fostering and educating the younger generation, so that they have a strong attitude, mentality, discipline and maturity in action and understanding.

3. The young generation is the next generation of the nation, which must be prepared from an early age to have abilities and skills that have high fighting power, so that they are ready to compete to be the best for the country and the future.