Empowerment Strategy During PPKM Period

One of the efforts to improve people’s quality of life is through empowerment strategy. Of course, this process cannot run in a short time, but must continue consistently and continuously. Moreover, the extension of the PPKM policy to date has made this empowerment activity very meaningful.

Empowerment can also be an investment because it has the same goal, namely to obtain benefits that are useful in improving the quality and welfare of life. Therefore, of course, it requires appropriate strategies and steps to achieve success in community empowerment so that it can run effectively and efficiently.

Community Empowerment Strategy

The first thing that is important to pay attention to before carrying out a community empowerment program is to recognize the problems and potentials that exist in the community itself. If the goal of the empowerment is to achieve community welfare, then the preparation of a mature strategy is the most important part.

Quoted from the Ministry of Education and Culture’s community empowerment module, there are several strategies that can be carried out in empowerment efforts as follows.

• Appropriate Approach Method

  There are 3 approaches in this section, namely:
  First, the welfare approach focuses on providing assistance to communities facing disasters. For example, communities affected by natural disasters. Second, a development approach centered on increasing self-reliance, capacity, and community self-reliance. For example, in the form of grants to foster self-reliance in the community. Third, the empowerment approach is centered on training communities to overcome their powerlessness, to become more empowered. In this case, the poverty that occurs can be seen as a result of the political process. An example is with the assistance of providing business capital.

  

  Reporting from a review of the sociological e-module package c issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2020, it is explained that there are 2 types of approaches in planning to recognize community needs.

  First, the technocratic approach (top down) which is a need planning aimed at overcoming problems that occur in the community based on data and observations from professional observers. The people only play a role as a spectator in this situation.

  Second, a participatory (bottom up) approach, that is, every planning must involve all the stakeholders involved. In this situation, the community assumes the role of the subject of development and has the right to express their aspirations in the preparation of development plans.

• Good communication

  The empowerment process requires a common understanding between community members and their empowering agents. The success of communication occurs when the interlocutor can interpret or capture the same message as the one who sent the message.

• Ongoing Assistance

  Although the assistance must take place continuously, it does not mean that the community is not independent. However, this is done precisely to ensure that empowerment activities continue on track so that goals can be achieved. This assistance can be in the form of strengthening, protection, support, and facilitation.

• Community Focus

  In order to avoid empowerment deviating from the goal, it is necessary to apply the concept of democracy. Empowerment must depart from the community, carried out by the community, and for the interests and needs of the community as an empowered object.

• To Enable Building Networking

  For the sustainability of empowerment activities to take place well, the community must know a good way to build networking. Empowerment agents must be able to direct the community to take advantage of existing facilities and infrastructure, so that they can be useful for building networking.

• Empowerment Agent Competence

  Community empowerment can be defined as the process of developing human beings through improving the quality of life. Therefore, empowerment agents must have competencies that can encourage people to be able to change for the better. Changes that occur must be adapted to the potential and needs of the community itself.

• Community Empowerment Steps

  Both in general and in particular, there are several important steps to be taken into account in community empowerment efforts. These include analyzing community needs and social situations. Potentials, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, as well as obstacles do not escape their influence on the community. So, these things also need proper identification. After that, continue with formulating problems from the results of the identification. Problem formulation activities by means of group discussions, village meetings, or research in the form of interviews, observations, and surveys.

  PProblem formulation is of course important in order to avoid misalignment in empowerment, and to better identify the needs of the community.

  The next step is to find various programs that are relevant to the analysis of the needs and social situation of the community.

Some of the points above must be the basis for community development before proceeding to determining alternative program priorities.

Next, carry out empowerment actions according to the priority order of the program. The objectives to be achieved in each program should be formulated in detail in order to achieve these goals.

A good goal can be seen from the characteristics of a clear and specific picture. There is a reflection of how to achieve these goals through the calculation of funds, time, and resources.

After that, carrying out monitoring and evaluation. This aims to ensure that empowerment activities do not get out of line so that they can proceed according to plan.

An evaluation is needed to determine the success or failure of the program by analyzing the causal factors. Through evaluation, the next program plan will become clearer and more mature.

Human Initiative as a humanitarian agency that has been officially registered with the United Nations since 2008 continues to empower every level of society, especially during the PPKM period as it is today.

Initiator friends, you can also contribute to the community empowerment. Come on, prepare your best donation and visit Solusi Peduli. We are waiting for real action from all of the Initiator Friends.