Seventy-Seven Operations, Forty Years: What Student-Led Disaster Response Looks Like in Indonesia

Four decades is a long time for a student-run volunteer organisation to survive, let alone one that repeatedly deploys to the most dangerous points of a disaster. Search and Rescue Universitas Hasanuddin (SAR Unhas), Indonesia's first student unit dedicated entirely to search and rescue, turned 40 in 2026.

The milestone was marked again at a seminar titled "40 Tahun SAR Unhas: Antisipasi Kebencanaan dan Partisipasi Publik dan Komunitas" at the National Library of Indonesia in Jakarta on 21 September 2026.

SAR Unhas was founded on 14 June 1986 by a group of outdoor-enthusiast students on Hasanuddin University's old Makassar campus, with no comparable model in Indonesia at the time. Four decades later, the organisation counts at least 77 recorded operations and 38 training cohorts. Its first recorded operation was a search on Mount Bawakaraeng, Gowa, in 1987; since then its involvement has extended to the 2018 Palu-Donggala earthquake and liquefaction disaster and the January 2026 search for a missing ATR 42-500 aircraft on Mount Bulusaraung, Pangkep.

Four core values, cepat, tepat, handal, and ikhlas (fast, accurate, reliable, selfless), underpin a long-running formal coordination arrangement with Indonesia's national search-and-rescue agency BASARNAS, the national and regional disaster agencies BNPB and BPBD, the Indonesian Red Cross PMI, and the armed forces and police. Leadership has passed without significant interruption from the organisation's first chair to its fortieth, Juninho Yanto Benny, in 2026.

The 40th-anniversary peak event was held on 14 June 2026 in Makassar, attended by BASARNAS, BPBD, the navy, and the air force, alongside the launch of a documentary book, "Rumah Jingga Tamalanrea." "This four-decade milestone becomes a moment of reflection and a renewed commitment to keep serving the community," Hasanuddin University Vice Rector Prof. Muhammad Ruslin said, as quoted by ANTARA.

One session at the Jakarta seminar was delivered by Zulfahmi Ramli (registered as W-0908 Bayu Windu), a member of Wanadri's 29th board of directors and head of the foreign affairs division of the Federasi Mountaineering Indonesia (FMI), titled "Inisiasi Standar Kompetensi Publik Pemuda dalam Menghadapi Bencana" (Initiating a Public Youth Competency Standard for Disaster Response).

The proposal outlines a three-stage competency framework for young people, covering pre-disaster preparedness, emergency response, and post-disaster recovery, including land navigation, emergency first aid, urban search and rescue, water rescue, and post-disaster psychological support. Its central argument: youth disaster-preparedness training across Indonesia remains informal and inconsistent between organisations, making skills hard to verify across institutions.

The proposed rollout begins in the first quarter of 2027 with curriculum development involving BPBD, BNPB, Basarnas, and the health, social affairs, and education ministries, followed by pilot programmes in schools and universities in the second quarter, then evaluation and wider adoption in the third and fourth quarters. Wanadri itself is separately building a Light-USAR team toward the international INSARAG External Classification certification.

With roughly 500 active members and alumni spread across Indonesia, SAR Unhas illustrates what sustains a community-based volunteer organisation: consistent leadership succession, formal long-term partnerships with state institutions, and institutional documentation that keeps collective memory alive across generations. The Wanadri proposal extends that logic one step further, from a single organisation tested over 40 years toward a national framework that other youth organisations could adopt.