Furthermore, Restu Gunawan explained that “We have carried out the Spice Routes Visualization Competition in the form of Poster, Video, Animation and Comic with the theme Indonesian Spice Routes for The World. With a total of 1862 participants, there were 3 Major Winners and 10 Selected Winners for each group, as well as 2 Favorite Winners from each category for poster and animation.”
“Meanwhile, with a total of 529 participants, consisting of 229 in the Children’s Comic Category and 300 in the Youth Comic Category 3 Main Winners were selected and 15 Appreciation Winners for each category. The use of posters, animations, and comics as a media in delivering a story and history of the Spice Routes is hoped to be able to help spreading the information to the younger generation.”
Head of Comittee of The Spice Routes Program of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Ananta Kusuma Seta added that there have been a lot of joint efforts to develop and utilize the history of the spice routes with numerous parties such as The Technical Implementation Unit, regional government, public institutions, communities and other stakeholders.
“There have been numerous activities from training, product and quality optimization, marketing, and the application in the health and beauty industry, culinary, tourism, and others. The purpose is definitive, namely, how the glorious spirit of spices can be reanimated into today’s value and lifestyle. The manifestation can be in the form of spice culture empowerment, edu-tourism development of the spice routes, all the way to art show, to art performing, gastronomy, traditional knowledge and medicine, workshop and others.”
The intention becomes the blueprint of the rise of public awareness of the spice culture in building a better future for the nation. Spice Routes is not only a part of history, it is also the strength for present day and the future.
