Developing Rural Community Empowerment Model to Increase
Educational Needs Fulfillment for Children with Disabilities
Ranti Novianti
1,2
, Zaenal Alimin
1
, Endang Rochyadi
1
, Didi Tarsidi
1
, and Nenden Ineu Herawati
1
1
Special Education Program, School of Postgraduate Study, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
2
Special Education Program, Teachers Training and Education Department, Universitas Islam Nusantara, Bandung,
Indonesia
Keywords: Children with disabilities, Rural community, Society empowerment.
Abstract: The objective of the study is to find an applicable society empowerment model in increasing society consent
to fulfill disability children education. The method in this study was mix method carried out in three phases,
covering: 1) preliminary study phase; 2) model development phase; and 3) implementation phase. After the
implementation of the model, there are some changes in the rural community. In Mekarlaksana where the
research was conducted, the changes that occurred are: society understanding on the types of disabilities and
children with disabilities needs were increasing, the society raise more awareness that children with
disabilities need special treatment, the people are aware to move and make a planning to support the education
fulfillment for children with disabilities. The established empowerment model has created positive impact on
the rural community and the education fulfillment for children with disabilities. The empowerment model can
be implemented in increasing society empowerment that will lead to the education fulfillment for children
with disabilities.
1 INTRODUCTION
Most children with disabilities in rural areas have not
received a decent education and they receive a strong
negative stigma from the society as disability
children. (Lauver, 2010; Ahmad, 2013; Balcazar,
Kuchak, Dimpfl, Sariepella, and Alvarado, 2014). It
is due to the fact that most families with disability
children are from low economic conditions
(Susuman, Blignaut, and Lougue, 2013). Remote
access to school, inadequate educational facilities,
coupled with the limited knowledge, understanding
and information has have caused problems for the
family in handling its disability children (Eigenbrood,
2005; Black, Mcconkey, Roberts, and Ferguson,
2010). The family does not afford to make efforts in
meeting the needs of sustainable and good education
and training and tends to take care the children at
home.
Society, including surroundings neighborhood,
school and the social and religious organizations in
the village fails to perform their functions, especially
in providing support and social participation. The
village, district and regent authority also did not
contribute proactively in addressing the fulfillment of
the educational needs of children with disabilities in
the village. Society does not have power in meeting
the educational needs of children with disabilities.
There are still many disability children who are
marginalized and alienated from social interaction
and services. (Foley, Roche, and Tucker, 2001).
Ecological perspective believes that the family,
the school, the village authority, local communities
and society in the broad sense are elements that
influence the children development. (Farber and
Maharaj, 2005; Huraerah 2008; Wakimizu,
Yamaguchi, and Fujioka, 2016). Communities should
have a power (Van Haren and Fiedler, 2008; Akey,
Marquis, and Ross, 2000), particularly in meeting the
educational needs for children with disabilities in the
village. To this end, empowerment needs to be done,
because the empowerment is essentially intended to
develop the potential within oneself so as to spur
social change. (Mclaughlin, Brown, and Young,
2004; Wilson, Abram, and Anderson, 2010).
Weak community empowerment in educational
needs fulfillment for children with disabilities is the
major concern of this study. To overcome these
problems, applicative model of community
empowerment to increase community empowerment
Novianti, R., Alimin, Z., Rochyadi, E., Tarsidi, D. and Herawati, N.
Developing Rural Community Empowerment Model to Increase Educational Needs Fulfillment for Children with Disabilities.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017) - Volume 2, pages 513-518
ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
513

need to be developed. Based on the results of previous
research studies, the research (Ljunggren, Huang,
Wang, and Johansson, 2010; Mauro, Biggeri, and
Grilli, 2015) has been widely examines how
communities are empowered, but so far no studies
that focus specifically on empowering the community
to meet the educational needs of children disabilities.
Therefore, this study aimed to find an applicative
model of community empowerment in improving
community empowerment so that the educational
needs of children with disabilities in Mekarlaksana in
particular can be met. Empowerment was conducted
on the social system that is micro system, meso
system, eco systems and macro system. Micro system
includes immediate child environment, the family,
friends and school environment. Meso system
includes the relationships between micro systems, eco
systems including policy makers, while macro system
includes broader community in respect to values and
culture. (Farber and Maharaj, 2005; Algood, Hong,
Gourdine, and Williams, 2011).
2 METHOD
The method of the study was mixed method and it was
done through three research phases; 1) preliminary
study phase, in this phase the researchers collect the
initial information on the objective condition on the
site (empirically) and compare the obtained data with
existing literature (theoretically), this was done to
formulate the intended model, the method used in this
phase was qualitative and quantitative methods; 2)
model development phase, in this phase focus group
discussion (FGD) and model validation were carried
out through both content and empirical validity so as
to polish the model, the method used in this phase was
evaluative method; 3) implementation try out phase,
the designated and validated model was then
implemented to see its practicality. Thus in this phase
qualitative method was deemed appropriate to use.
The subject of the research was divided into
primary and secondary informants. Selection of
informants was conducted by purposive sampling.
The primary informants consist of the Mekarlaksana
headman, Society based Rehabilitation cadres
comprising such community elements as Family with
Disability children Association, Community Social
Workers, PKK cadres, RT and RW headman, BPD
members and School teachers. The secondary
informants are all the villagers of Mekarlaksana. Each
is one person of each element and all the data obtained
has been through the approval and also protected
confidential.
This research subject becomes an important
element in the process of empowerment because it is
an element of the social system that provision of
education services for children with disabilities can
be met and improved. Ecological theory states that the
environment strongly influenced developments.
Bronfenbrenner ecological theory focuses on "human
development is influenced by five environmental
systems, namely micro system, meso system, eco
systems, macro system and kroon system." (Santrock,
2009). The research lasted for one year starting from
July 2013 to June 2014.
The site of the research was Mekarlaksana
Village, Ciparay District, Bandung Regency, West
Java Indonesia. This place was chosen because
Bandung Regency have more disables and they are
not handled properly yet either by the state or private
parties. Integrated Data recapitulation for Social
Protection Program in 2012 Bandung Regency
Bandung Regency has stated that as many as 8,300
people with disabilities. (Indriani, 2012). Ciparay
district is one of the four districts in Bandung
Regency with the most disable people. The
insufficient data and limited information has caused
limited access for the villagers in acquiring
information from the government in relation to the
programs in handling children with disabilities.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Based on the data analysis on the preliminary
research, the society empowerment model was
designed as an effort to increasing education
fulfillment for children with disabilities. Figure 1
Validated hypothetical model.
ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences
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Figure 1. Society empowerment chart.
Figure 1 describes the structures/ contents and the
flowchart of empowering process. The process is
explained as follows:
1. TKM Recruitment
TKM (Society’s team work) is projected to run
the flow of the society’s empowerment
processes and hold some events that empower
people to fulfill education need for the disability
children in the village. TKM should represent
every society’s elements, it was done to ensure
the empowering process is done through the
whole level of society’s.
2. Cadre Assessment
Assessment was done to measure the TKM
motivation, commitment and understanding on
the children with disabilities and how to deal
with them. It was done to reinforce the
organization and to build the awareness on the
importance of education for children with
disabilities which belongs to every elements of
the society to fulfill the education for the
children with special needs.
3. Cadre basic training in Identifying the children
In this phase, the TKM was introduced to who
are the disability children, what are their
characteristics. It was done to do early
identification on the children suspected to suffer
disability to provide immediate services.
4. Cadre Basic Training in Assessing Children
In this stage, the TKM members are introduced
to assessment: what is a good instrument for
assessment and how to do assessment.
5. Cadre Basic Training in finding and building
network
In this stage, the cadres are exposed to the
organizational reinforcement, fund raising and
networking, advocating to sustain the upcoming
activities.
Developing Rural Community Empowerment Model to Increase Educational Needs Fulfillment for Children with Disabilities
515

6. Child treatment
The next step of the research is the most
important stage. It deals with how to handle
disability children along with their family,
teachers, community and government authority.
a. Children handling along with the family
The child handling along with their parents
were done through the following
procedures: 1) Parents with disability
children empowerment on the importance of
the education for the children were done to
build parents awareness in paying more
attentions on their children needs and
educational fulfillment for their children; 2)
Providing training on how to handle
disability children at home and how to ru the
designated program based on the prior
assessment done by TKM; 3) Paying home
visit and doing treatment to the children at
home and teaching their parents how to
handle their children; 4) Doing weekly
monitoring.
b. Children handling with the school
authorities
The child handling along with the school
authorities was also committed through
some stages: 1) Holding a training at school
dealing with basic concepts of inclusive
school and how to identify and assess
disability children with permanent
impairments; 2) Doing simulations in
carrying out identifications and assessments
and practicing the identification and
assessment in the real life context; 3)
Providing training for analyzing the
assessment result and planning individual
instructions and providing special learning
control to the teachers; 4) Holding a
monitoring with the teachers to see the
children progress.
c. Children Handling along with the authorities
and society organization
In this stage, the following procedures were
also carried out: 1) Holding meetings with
the village authorities, the headman in
particular, discussing the headman
contribution in education fulfillment for
disability children; 2) Discussing the
conditions and the social efforts with society
organizations and formal education
institutions in Mekarlaksana Village to
fulfill the education need for disability
children; 3) Meeting the head of Ciparay
district, Bandung regency and West Java
Province ministry of education.
Based on the model of empowerment, it can be
seen that the flowchart of empowering process has
guided the vulnerable and weak community to have
ability and skills (Yoo et al., 2004; Suharto, 2005).
Based on the interview and observation to the RBM
cadres, it was found out that after the implementation
of the model, The cadres has gained more knowledge
and skills in identifying the disability characteristics,
as the result, RBM cadres were able to record and
identify every children with disabilities in their
village. In addition, the RBM cadres were able to do
assessment on the disability children and their family.
The aforementioned condition was confirmed
through the cadre skills in identifying the disability
children needs and performing better child treatment.
They were also confident in having face to face
meeting with the children and their family. The cadres
have also given some advices to the parents to handle
their disable children at home. Moreover, the cadres
responsibly recorded the children progress by
regularly paying home visit.
In fund raising, networking and advocating skills,
the cadres have successfully built the network in SD
and SMP in Mekarlaksana, consequently, they can
exchange the information with the teachers in relation
to the training and gaining access to the library
accessible to the disability children. Furthermore, the
schools welcome the disability children to be
accepted.
From the interview, the researchers revealed that
parents with disability children change their way of
thinking on the importance of the education for their
disability children and they gain more knowledge on
how to educate and handle their disability children at
home. They are not ashamed of their disability
children and they are willing to put their children at
school in the current academic year.
Based on the interview and observation to the
teachers in Mekarlaksana Village, it was revealed that
the teachers are able to do identification, assessment
and treatment to disability children at school.
However, the teachers need to improve their
knowledge. The school authorities also welcome the
children with disabilities to enroll at the schools.
Based on the interview and the observation, there
have been some changes in Mekarlaksana community
after the implementation of the model, they are: the
increase of society understanding on the types of
disabilities and the special needs for children with
disabilities, the increase of social awareness in
fulfilling education needs for children with
disabilities, the increase of social awareness in
ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences
516

moving and planning the education fulfillment for
children with special needs in Mekarlaksana village,
the society provides school access and home visit as
the realization of the education fulfillment for the
disability children, the society can intervene in
providing education fulfillment for disability
children, the authority are made aware of the
disability rights in accessing education and support
the implementation and the development of the
upcoming events
Based on the interview to the parents and RBM
cadres, it was revealed that children with disabilities
have full access to proper education they deserve. The
disability children in Mekarlaksana are facilitated to
get formal, informal and non-formal education,
among others: the children with disabilities acquire
proper education from their family. It was confirmed
from the condition that the increase of the family
awareness to take their children to school. In addition
parents are gaining more knowledge and
understanding in handling their children.
Based on the results of the assessment of children
with disabilities were analyzed quantitatively child
looks enhanced ability. Children with disabilities
have a wide open opportunities to every accessible
school nearby their surroundings and they also
deserve educational services in line with their special
needs from the school they go to. The availability of
learning access in society that pay home visit. The
availability of better learning facilities at school and
the available support from the other parties.
4 CONCLUSION
The Society empowering model that is being
developed can be implemented in empowering the
society so that the education fulfillment for the
disability children are realized in Mekarlaksana
village, Bandung. The reliability of the model has
been proven through the field test. The empowerment
model has contributed positive effects to
Mekarlaksana Village society had toward the
fulfillment of education needs for children with
disabilities. As described in the discussion of research
results. In brief, the model is deemed applicable. The
empowerment model has given significant and
sustainable change in fulfilling education needs for
disability children. This model is believed applicable
in other regions with similar characteristics. It is in
line with the philosophy of empowerment that society
is not only the object but it also plays as an agent of
changes by applying this society empowerment
model’s.
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