When TikTok account @pandawaragroup first posted their videos of cleaning rivers in Bandung in August 2022, they did not do it for fame. But to their surprise, their content has been seen and liked by millions of people over the past few months.

Gilang Rahma, Muhammad Rifqi, Muhammad Agung, Ikhsan Destian and Rafly Pasya are just ordinary 22-year-olds who often hang out in one of their houses in Kopo, part of the southern area of Bandung. Six months ago, they were gathering at Gilang's house when it suddenly flooded.

"We were not doing anything in particular at that moment, but it was raining hard outside. We did not expect that the house would be flooded!" Rifqi recalled.

For several years, the southern part of Bandung has repeatedly been flooded. Gilang told The Jakarta Post that, in 2015, they experienced one of the worst floods.

"The water was so high, it reached the height of an adult's chest. In my house, we found a snake swimming in the water," Agung chimed in.

The incident inspired them to form the Pandawara Group where they join forces to clean the surrounding environment. The group’s name is derived from Pandawa, a group of five brothers in the Mahabharata wayang stories which consists of Yudhistira, Bima, Arjuna and twins Nakula and Sadewa. 

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