YOGYAKARTA- Poverty eradication programs should produce members of community or individuals who are independent, creative, innovative and productive. Therefore, they can seek business opportunities to increase their income. During crises, the independent individuals will be able to cope with their creation and productivity.
"Their creation, such as small businesses and trade that are opened along the side of the road, should not be arbitrarily evicted without offering them any solution to increase their income," said Prof. Dr. Ir. Sunarru Samsi Hariadi, Head of Doctoral and Master’s Program of Information and Communication Development UGM, in the national seminar entitled Stepping on Hope and Poverty Eradication towards Indonesia’s Prosperity held by Graduate Student Association Faculty of Animal Sciences UGM, Saturday (26/6).
Sunarru further said that one of the steps to reach the goal is to make approaches in the form of dialogical counseling/coaching with dialectic manner. The coaching is open and communicative as a way to investigate a problem faced by the community and later to seek for solutions. "With that model, people are invited to be critical in understanding critical, independent, and creative personality. With the guidance from relevant institutions, it will open the knowledge of community, helping them understand various business opportunities," he said.
On the occasion, he gave an example of the Women Farmers Group of Menur in Wareng Village of Wonosari, Gunung Kidul regency, which is considered as a creative and productive society. When agricultural land gets less fertile and narrower and unable to fulfill the family need, the farmers then work in non-agricultural field (traders, laborers, carpenters, etc.). Agricultural land is then taken over and managed by the women. They formed a group that does various activities, such as managing agriculture, cooperatives, collective barns, and home industries. "The activity diversification in this community increases family income that is able to alleviate poverty," Sunarru added.
Meanwhile, lecturer of Faculty of Economics and Business UGM, Catur Sugyanto, Ph.D., who is also speaker at the seminar, said that with the increase in unemployment and poverty, the role of government is needed, especially to help the poor in accessing education and health. "The opening of access for poor people to education and health is expected to increase the living standard. In the long term, this situation will help the government in reducing the number of poor people," Catur said.
On the other hand, Catur added, the quality of human resources is proven to be a factor to boost regional economic growth. Meanwhile, the implementation of decentralization policy since 2001 may have resulted in low quality of education because of the inappropriate budget priorities. He cited the low participation in schools for all ages in West Nusa Tenggara, which is still below the national average. "Evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for school participation of students aged 13-15 years old (SMP/MTs) is 76.5%, while the national average is 83.5%. So, even if the MDG has been newly introduced, the low participation of education and poverty have been identified for a long time," said Catur.