10th Global Conference on Business & EconomicsISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2
INNOVATION PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT FOR THE WOMEN AS A CREATIVE INDUSTRY BASED EFFORTS TO IMPROVE LOCALITY FAMILY WELFARE
by: EndryBoeriswati, et al.
ABSTRACT
The involvement of women in development programs such as strengthening the economy and improving the quality of human resources to eliminating poverty is going through. Women's powerlessness in the face of poverty in the capacity building aspect of the selling power of women is caused by a lack of self-knowledge in overcoming gender-related problems, ignorance of self-motivation and self-optimization potential, the potential utilization of the environment to be of economic value, and procedures in conducting the creative industry. Poverty reduction requires a strategy that includes equity, equality in welfare levels, access levels, the level of awareness, level of active participation, and power levels that can be implemented in capacity building in the empowerment of women in the creative industries. The ownership of the capacity building is a person who encourages a person to survive in a competition like today's economy.
(Keywords: Poverty, Women, and Capacity Building)
A. Introduction
Gander is a social format that governs the relationship of men and women through social processes. Gender role differences occur due to the differences of the local cultures in assigning role of women. Gender is not a universal or is generally accepted, but it is socially situational which depends on the social development. This gender social format is the construction which allocates roles, rights, obligations and responsibilities of both male and female. Gender identifies the social relations between women and men, which is not defined by biological difference, but more sharpened by the distinction of learning and cultural values. Biological distinctions that define what can and what cannot be done by women according to community agreements. The gender which is based on the distinction of the values determines the role of women in all aspects of life and equality of women. Because of that, gender may change from place to place, time to time, even between socioeconomic classes of society. On the other hand, sex does not change (Fakih, 1996). The existing data indicate that the condition of women in Indonesia is still much need of attention. In the field of education women are still left behind their man’s partners. While the instructional materials used and the process of education management are still gender bias, as a result of male dominance as a determiner of educational policy (Soemartoyo, 2002).
The impact of the assigning gender in Indonesian culture has positioned women are in poverty. Poverty is a complex problem influenced by many interrelated factors such as income level, health, education, access to goods and services, geographic location, and the gender and environmental conditions. Poverty is a condition in which someone or a group of men and womenwho cannot fulfill their basic rights to maintain and develop a dignity life. This definition moved from a rights-based approach that states that the poor have equal basic rights with other community members.
In 2004 the absolute number of poor people was recorded at 36.1 million people or 16.66% of the total population. Of this amount, if the sex difference is used, poor women outnumbered poor men. Poor households headed by women increased to 3.03 million, and the number is increasing rapidly from year to year. From the above description, it can be said that poverty is very close to women. According to the National Socioeconomic Survey (SUSENAS) of 2004 the number of women aged 10 years and over who have not or do not go to school is two times as much as the number of men who have not or do not go to school (11.56%: 5.43%). This condition illustrates that poverty is still attached and very closed to the women.
Poverty is defined as the powerlessness of a group of people on the government system that causes people to be in the position of being exploited. This shows that poverty is a condition of life pattern, culture, and patterns of interaction which is not something given, but it occurs because of the role of the oppressive structure (Huri, 2009). The dominant discourses that state that women need not economically independent have become a major cause of women and poverty linkages. Education factor has become a part of an effort to make the women dependent economically. Without gender equality, poverty and underdevelopment cannot be overcome completely.
The government has done many efforts to eliminate the poverty through various poverty programs by providing intensive programs, soft loans, subsidies, and grants. A number of ways and the efforts done by Indonesia in reducing poverty has been implemented since the Social Welfare Program for Joint Business Group of Independent Young Families (Prokesos KUBE KMM), Welfare Savings (Takesra), Business Loan for People's Welfare (Kukesra), Small and Medium Business Credit, Social Safety Net (Social Safety Net Program), and direct cash assistance. The efforts done in the process of poverty eradication are carried out by the government in collaboration with communities, NGOs, and private parties. However, these programs that do not have a significant impact in poverty alleviation programs. This is because the programsthat have been launched by the government in poverty alleviation give more "fish" compared to "hook" to poor families. Communities are used as objects than as subjects in the process of poverty alleviation. The project provided by the government in poverty alleviation proposal does not come from the poor but only the desire of the government alone. All the poverty alleviation programs which are revolved are socially accepted by the society without considering the environmental characteristics of each community and active participation and role of societyin poverty alleviation programs.
A number of efforts undertaken by the government in poverty alleviation programs are entirely only on the side of pivot on the paradigm of modernization (the modernization paradigm) and the product cantered model whose study is based on theoretical models of capital economic growth and neoclasic orthodox economic (Elson, 1977; Suharto, 2002). In general, the approach used is more concentrated in individual poverty so that social and structural aspects of poverty become untreated.
However, when examined more wisely, these programs have not been able to alleviate poverty significantly. Women become second-class citizens, and become the object of various change efforts that have been prepared within the framework of thinking based on assumptions that are highly skewed male. This has become one of the factors that explain why women are left behind or left out in the development process. In general in development programs at the level provinces, districts, and villages, both men and women not involved in the planning and decision making. Nearly all the decisions of the program are top down, so people just stay as the executor of the program. Traditional norms are still often used as reference in designing the policy programs, and there is a tendency to use the same policy for rural development. The involvement of women in development programs such as, strengthening the economy and improving the quality of human resources is expected to be realized. Because of that, the equality strategy is needed, such as equality in the level of welfare, access levels, the level of awareness, level of active participation, and level of control/power for the empowerment through increasing the capacity building. Capacity building can be defined as capacity development or capacity strengthening, suggesting an initiative on the development of existing capacities, whereas others are more referring to the constructing capacity, as a creative process to build capacity that is not visible (not yet exist). Brown (2001:25) defines capacity building as a process that can enhance the ability of a person, an organization or a system to achieve the aspired goals. Unlike Brown, Morison (2001:42) sees capacity building as a process to do something, or series of movements, changes in multi-level individuals, groups, organizations and systems in order to strengthen the ability of individuals and organizations so that adjustments can be responsive to changing environments.In this context the terminology of capacity is the ability of an individual, an organization or a system to carry out functions and achieve the objectives effectively and efficiently.
Capacity building can also be defined as a process to (1) improve the ability of individuals, groups, organizations, and communities to analyze their environment, (2) identify issues, interests and opportunities, (3) formulate strategies to solve problems and interests of those in above and to take advantage of opportunities that are relevant, (4) designa plan for the program, and (5) effectively utilize basic resources that support implementation, monitor and evaluate program plans, and (6) use feedback to learn the lessons. Sensions (1993: 15) states the notion of capacity building as follows:
capacity building is usually understood to mean helping governments, communities and individuals to develop the skills and expertise needed to achieve on their goals. Capacity building programs, often designed to strengthen participant's abilities to evaluate their policy choices and implement decisions effectively, may include education and training, institutional and legal reforms, as well as scientific, technological and financial assistance.
Capacity building is generally understood as an effort to help governments, communities or individualsin developing expertise and skills needed to achieve the goal. Capacity building programs are often designed to strengthen the ability to evaluate their policy options and execute decisions effectively. Capacity building can include education and training, regulatory and institutional reforms, as well as financial assistance, technology and science.
In this capacitydevelopment, we actually optimize the empowerment of individuals in the development. Empowerment can be defined as the acquisition of power and access to resources for a living. The term empowerment is often used to describe the situation as desired by the individual, in the circumstances of each individual to have choice and control in all aspects of life. This concept is a form of respect for human beings or in other words "to humanize human beings." Through the empowerment, it is expected that there is a shift in roles from "the victims of development" to "the agents of development". Development perspective views empowerment as a very broad concept. Pearse and Stiefel in Prijono (1996) explain that participatory empowerment involves the respect for difference, local wisdom, strengthdeconcentration,self-reliance improvement.
The success of empowerment can be seen from the empowerment of the society that involves economic ability, the ability to access the welfare benefits, and the ability of cultural and political types. These three aspects are linked to the four dimensions of power, namely: ‘power within', 'power to' , 'power over', and 'power with'.
Based on the thought above, what the factors do support the improvement of women innovativeness on poverty alleviation viewed from the aspect of capacity building.
In the innovativeness concept, women actas an object which can be a tool for social change through the innovativeness of society’s groups, new ideas for creating welfare (Peter Drucker, 1988). Innovativeness has the characteristics of (a) analyzing relative advantages as users of new ideas, (b) compatibility with the value and character of the new culture, (c) the difficulty of the ideas that meant, (d) divisibility, and (e) easily communicated(Philip Kolter, 1983). The innovation process requires two things: invention and needs, thus creating more opportunities for innovation itself to be developed and used. Innovation can be adopted into a new tool by the society who use it (Alan Webb, 1996). Adoption process does not stop on a merely accept or reject new ideas, but later will change again as a result of the influence of the environment. Because of that, modification is done by dividing the process of decision making about innovation.
B. Research Methodology
- Research Methods
This is the developmental research on women's capacity building for poverty reduction, this study was categorized into applied research, namely to implement, test and evaluate the ability of the theory applied in solving practical problems (Sugiyono, 2001). As an empirical matter, poverty alleviation through improving the capacity building of women is interesting to study ethnographically by focusing on the subject system knowledge and how knowledge is organized to determine the action. In addition, the ethnographic methods were used to discover how to organize cultural community in mind and then use these cultures in their life. This approach is more holistic, integrative and qualitative analysis in order to get a native point of view.
2. Technique of Data Collection
The data used in this study were mainly derived from primary data collected from interviews with individual respondents by using structured questions. In general, descriptive methods were used in analyzing the data. The criteria stated by Sayogyo, World Bank and the Bureau of Statistics were used to measure the level of the poverty.
Both primary and secondary data were collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and a written document analysis. Primary data actually took the precedence over the secondary data, although the secondary data occupies an important position in this research. The primary data were obtained directly from informants (base, main, supporting) and field observation;whereas secondary data were collected through the library references. As an ethnographic study, the analysis was carried out continuously in the field and when writing this final draft. Identifying the parts, understanding the relationships inter division, with an overall understanding of the relationship, and expressing it were the most important events in this analysis. Spradley calls ethnographic analysis as a re-examination of the record field to search for cultural symbols (which are usually expressed in the native language) and explore the relationship among the symbols. An ethnographic analysis, as stated by Spradley (1997:118), departs from the belief that an informant has understood a series of categories about his/her own culture, learn the relations, and realize or find out the relationship with the whole.
3. Technique of Data Analysis
As it is usual in ethnographic analysis, interpretation method was used to access more of the various domains in which are naturalized and the characteristics of the activity of the participants being studied (Morley quoted from Barker, 2000: 27). Critical aspect in ethnography which was applied in this study was more emphasis on the processing and comprehensive analysis of ethnographic findings in the field. With applied ethnographic study, the goal is to find the self-capacity building model through the implementation of innovativeness of women in poverty alleviation. Triangulation through focus group discussion was used to determine the validity of the data. The results of focus group discussion were used as research data.
4. Unit of Analysis
This is a multi-year study which lasts for three years with three stages. The first phase aimed at mapping the problems that were needed to know the conditions and causes of poverty faced by the respondents. In addition, data collected in this study were the efforts made by the perpetrators of the creative industries in achieving success.
To obtain the data on poverty, the theoretical construct referred to the concept of poverty. Poverty could be conceptually divided into three types, namely subjective poverty, absolute poverty, and relative poverty (Sarasutha and Noor, 1994). On the concept of subjective poverty, everyone bases his own thoughts by stating that their needs are not met adequately, although in absolute terms or relative was not classified as poor. In other words individuals make comparisons between the "needs and wants." The definition of absolute poverty is a person (family) having insufficient income to maintain the minimum requirements in an efficient physical condition, while the concept of relative poverty is associated with the concept of relativedeprivation or someone relative position to other community members in connection with the fulfillment of needs. This concept is closely related to income inequality. Actually, poverty issues have been discussed by experts from various viewpoints. For example, Sen (1981) looks at poverty from the viewpoint of biological or basic needs. Scott (1979) views from the average income per capita, and Freidman (1979) sees it from an opportunity to actualize the social power base. (Crescent, 2002).
C. Results and Discussion
One of the strategies being undertaken to implement poverty alleviation is to involve women through the PKK. This movement is a national movement within the community development that grows from the bottom whose management is from, to, for the community toward the realization of a family who is faithful and devoted to God Almighty, morality and virtuous, healthy, prosperous, progressive and independent, welfare and gender justice and legal and environment awareness.
Through the PKK movement, it is expected that the pattern of family-based poverty alleviation can be realized. This pattern is a benchmarked from the pattern based on community-driven development that is the existence of a community's ability to decide for itself the choice of the available resources for their own purpose and usefulness. On the PKK, the smallest community is in the family environment, so that the resources owned by the smallest family are a highly valuable capital to improve family living standards.