Reciprocity Within the University: Grassroots Financial Aid as Hidden University–Community Engagement in a Global South Context

Abstract

A grassroots financial aid initiative established in 2018 by lecturers in the Department of Accounting at Politeknik Negeri Ujung Pandang, Indonesia, emerged after several students experienced severe financial hardship, including food insecurity, that affected their ability to participate in classes. In response, lecturers voluntarily contributed a portion of their monthly salaries to establish a collective fund known as ‘bansos’ (social aid). Initially created to provide emergency assistance for students’ tuition fees and daily food needs, the fund gradually expanded to support Internet data packages during the COVID-­ 19 pandemic, and later, emergency assistance for cleaning staff and colleagues facing financial difficulties. The initiative operates through a simple, trust-­ based mechanism in which students experiencing financial hardship are identified by peers or academic advisors, screened by a coordinator and approved by the department. Assistance is provided without burdensome administrative requirements, enabling rapid responses to urgent needs. Sustained entirely through voluntary donations and mutual trust, the initiative has evolved into an informal departmental safety net that continues to support members of the university community experiencing financial hardship.

The initiative contributes to understandings of university–­ community engagement (UCE) by advancing an expanded concept of community. Rather than viewing community solely as an external group or ‘outsider’ to the university, it demonstrates that community (in fact, sites of precarity and social vulnerability) can also exist and be engaged with within the university itself. This suggests that UCE is not always necessarily outward-­ facing. In this way, the initiative blurs the conventional boundary between university and community. The initiative also extends understandings of UCE beyond formal, programmatic partnerships. It foregrounds the often-invisible moral labour involved in responding to precarity, as well as the significance of micro-­ level engagement and embodied reciprocity. Situated in Indonesia, this Snapshot contributes to diversifying the narratives of UCE that have predominantly emerged from the Global North and highlights the significance of informal, relational and grassroots forms of engagement in the Global South.