MAGELANG, Saco- Indonesia.com - Kota Magelang terpilih menjadi Rumah Kegiatan Sosialisasi Regional I untuk pengembangan produk unggulan desa dengan pendekatan one village one product (OVOP) se-Jawa dan Sumatera. Kegiatan ini dijadwalkan berlangsung pada Jumat (17/5/2013) - Sabtu (18/5/2013).

Kegiata berskala nasional itu digelar di Atria Hotel & Conference Jalan Jenderal Sudirman Kota Magelang. Rencananya bakal hadir Menteri Koperasi & UKM Syarief Hasan. Juga, Gubernur Jateng Bibit Waluyo serta sekitar 110 kepala dinas yang membawahi koperasi dan UKM se-Jawa & Sumatera.

"Ini ada event tahunan dan Kota Magelang dipercaya menjadi tuan rumah untuk kali pertama," ujar Kepala Diskoperindag Kota Magelang, Tony A Prijono, Kamis (16/5/2013). Jawa Tengah adalah salah satu peraih penghargaan dari Presiden  terkait pembinaan koperasi dan UKM sehingga mendapat mandat penyelenggaraan acara ini, yang kemudian mendaulat Kota Gethuk ini sebagai tuan rumah kegiatan.

Dalam dua hari agenda kegiatan, akan ada beragam aktivitas. Di antaranya adalah seminar tentang strategi pengembangan OVOP di Indonesia. Materi ini akan diisi Deputi Bidang Pemberdayaan UKMK Kemenkop & UKM, I Wayan Dipta. "Lalu ada juga pemaparan soal peranan daerah dalam mengembangkan produk unggulan dan forum berbagi informasi seputar pengembangan OVOP di tiap daerah. Termasuk dari Kota Magelang yang akan berbagi cara mengembangkan produk unggulannya," paparnya.

Toni menambahkan, event ini akan menjadi kesempatan baik bagi Kota Magelang untuk mempromosikan potensi daerah terutama produk unggulan berupa tahu dan konveksi. Selain juga bisa menyerap ilmu dari daerah lain soal cara mengembangkan produk unggulan. Setidaknya melalui kegiatan ini ada dampak positif bagi masyarakat Magelang baik dari segi wisata, okupansi hotel, peningkatan PAD, hingga kuliner Magelang yang ikut terangkat

"Kita nanti akan tampilkan produk unggulan yang masuk OVOP, antara lain produk makanan dari olahan tahu serta produk konveksi berupa baju wanita, kerudung, baju anak- anak bordir dan lain sebagainya. Namun kita juga akan memamerkan produk unggulan khas Kota Magelang meskipun tidak masuk OVOP, yaitu batik magelangan," imbuh mantan sekretaris DPRD Kota Magelang itu.

Pemerintah pusat telah mencanangkan program OVOP sejak 2011. Tujuannya jelas agar tiap desa atau daerah memiliki produk unggulan yang dikembangkan dengan berbasis koperasi. Toni menyebutkan, ada beberapa kriteria produk itu bisa dikatakan unggulan. Di antaranya produk unggulan yang telah dikembangkan secara turun menurun, lalu menjadi khas atau unik dari daerah itu, berbasis pada SDA lokal, dan memiliki peluang pasar yang luas.

Sekda Kota Magelang, Sugiharto, menambahkan kegiatan level nasional ini juga dapat menunjukkan kepada masyarakat luas bahwa meskipun Kota Magelang adalah kota kecil namun memiliki potensi dan memiliki daya tarik tersendiri. "Artinya, kota ini sudah mulai banyak diminati instansi atau orang di luar (untuk) menjadi pusat kegiatan. Kegiatan Kemenkop dan UKM ini jadi contoh bagus dan kesempatan kita menunjukan pada semua bahwa visi sebagai kota jasa mulai terwujud," tuturnya.

BALTIMORE — In the afternoons, the streets of Locust Point are clean and nearly silent. In front of the rowhouses, potted plants rest next to steps of brick or concrete. There is a shopping center nearby with restaurants, and a grocery store filled with fresh foods.

And the National Guard and the police are largely absent. So, too, residents say, are worries about what happened a few miles away on April 27 when, in a space of hours, parts of this city became riot zones.

“They’re not our reality,” Ashley Fowler, 30, said on Monday at the restaurant where she works. “They’re not what we’re living right now. We live in, not to be racist, white America.”

As Baltimore considers its way forward after the violent unrest brought by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of injuries he suffered while in police custody, residents in its predominantly white neighborhoods acknowledge that they are sometimes struggling to understand what beyond Mr. Gray’s death spurred the turmoil here. For many, the poverty and troubled schools of gritty West Baltimore are distant troubles, glimpsed only when they pass through the area on their way somewhere else.

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And so neighborhoods of Baltimore are facing altogether different reckonings after Mr. Gray’s death. In mostly black communities like Sandtown-Winchester, where some of the most destructive rioting played out last week, residents are hoping businesses will reopen and that the police will change their strategies. But in mostly white areas like Canton and Locust Point, some residents wonder what role, if any, they should play in reimagining stretches of Baltimore where they do not live.

“Most of the people are kind of at a loss as to what they’re supposed to do,” said Dr. Richard Lamb, a dentist who has practiced in the same Locust Point office for nearly 39 years. “I listen to the news reports. I listen to the clergymen. I listen to the facts of the rampant unemployment and the lack of opportunities in the area. Listen, I pay my taxes. Exactly what can I do?”

And in Canton, where the restaurants have clever names like Nacho Mama’s and Holy Crepe Bakery and Café, Sara Bahr said solutions seemed out of reach for a proudly liberal city.

“I can only imagine how frustrated they must be,” said Ms. Bahr, 36, a nurse who was out with her 3-year-old daughter, Sally. “I just wish I knew how to solve poverty. I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

The day of unrest and the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that followed led to hundreds of arrests, often for violations of the curfew imposed on the city for five consecutive nights while National Guard soldiers patrolled the streets. Although there were isolated instances of trouble in Canton, the neighborhood association said on its website, many parts of southeast Baltimore were physically untouched by the tumult.

Tensions in the city bubbled anew on Monday after reports that the police had wounded a black man in Northwest Baltimore. The authorities denied those reports and sent officers to talk with the crowds that gathered while other officers clutching shields blocked traffic at Pennsylvania and West North Avenues.

Lt. Col. Melvin Russell, a community police officer, said officers had stopped a man suspected of carrying a handgun and that “one of those rounds was spent.”

Colonel Russell said officers had not opened fire, “so we couldn’t have shot him.”

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The colonel said the man had not been injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Nearby, many people stood in disbelief, despite the efforts by the authorities to quash reports they described as “unfounded.”

Monday’s episode was a brief moment in a larger drama that has yielded anger and confusion. Although many people said they were familiar with accounts of the police harassing or intimidating residents, many in Canton and Locust Point said they had never experienced it themselves. When they watched the unrest, which many protesters said was fueled by feelings that they lived only on Baltimore’s margins, even those like Ms. Bahr who were pained by what they saw said they could scarcely comprehend the emotions associated with it.

But others, like Lambi Vasilakopoulos, who runs a casual restaurant in Canton, said they were incensed by what unfolded last week.

“What happened wasn’t called for. Protests are one thing; looting is another thing,” he said, adding, “We’re very frustrated because we’re the ones who are going to pay for this.”

There were pockets of optimism, though, that Baltimore would enter a period of reconciliation.

“I’m just hoping for peace,” Natalie Boies, 53, said in front of the Locust Point home where she has lived for 50 years. “Learn to love each other; be patient with each other; find justice; and care.”

A skeptical Mr. Vasilakopoulos predicted tensions would worsen.

“It cannot be fixed,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Why? Because people don’t obey the laws. They don’t want to obey them.”

But there were few fears that the violence that plagued West Baltimore last week would play out on these relaxed streets. The authorities, Ms. Fowler said, would make sure of that.

“They kept us safe here,” she said. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable when I was in my house three blocks away from here. I knew I was going to be O.K. because I knew they weren’t going to let anyone come and loot our properties or our businesses or burn our cars.”