Massive Change: Reinforce the Role of People’s Empowerment
Through Local Potency
Katiah Katiah, Sri Subekti, Supriyono Supriyono and Imam Nawawi
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: People, Empowerment, Local Potency.
Abstract: Nowadays, the concept of development base on the local community is frequently promoted, one of them is
people’s empowerment. Empowerment is a new concept of evolvement that is based on people-oriented,
people’s participation, empowerment, and sustainable for the people so that empowerment needs to focus on
initiative and correspond with people’s needs. The local potency can be a precious capital in empowering
because the people can easily utilize and manage their local potency to be developing. The aim of this study
is to evolve people’s empowerment based on local potency. This study is a qualitative approach with data
collection by observing and interviewing. The result of this study shows that people’s empowerment based
on local potency can be carried out by using human resources approach, nature, and market. But, can local
potency allow such a big impact on the positive change for the community.
1 INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, Indonesian’s lives are under a standard
of living. The people need to improve their condition
to avoid poverty zone so that, it takes an effort to
empower people to escalate their quality of life.
Conceptually, people’s empowerment is an attempt
that is delivered to the people that consist of
knowledge and ability to live independently for a
better life.
In the process of people’s empowerment, there
will be a manner and behavior change on the people.
The behavior change can be detected from how
people attempt to solve the social problem which is
one of the problems is poverty. Same goes to the
process of development, the important thing is that
how a change should concern with the potency that
every individual has because every individual will
have to play a big role in every change to increase
prosperity (Damayanti, 2014).
This effort is performed by utilizing self-potency
and also environment potency so that, the people
will be active and have a courage in taking action to
accomplish a better quality of life. In this case, the
people will be assisted by the facilitator who aims to
deliver knowledge to the people.
The process of people’s empowerment
implementation is out of expectation and not
maximal yet. It is because the people are not open-
minded on the innovation. Several people still hold
and maintain their tradition so that it makes them
feel alienated. Besides that, the assisting that is
carried out in the empowerment program is less
maximal. The presence of the assistance in the
people’s empowerment is only performed until the
empowerment program finalize in the time that is
determined. Otherwise, the people’s empowerment
programs should not be finished in the short time.
But, it should be carried out sustainable and
continual so that the socialization that is delivered to
the people will finalize until the people are able to
run the program independently and avoid the
dependability behavioral dependence.
The people’s empowerment appears because of
the failure in resolving poverty and the development
programs so that it takes an alternative solution to
solve the problem to accomplish the economic
growth (Rifa’I, 2013). However, a lot of barriers in
the empowerment process invents the people’s
empowerment not succeed. One of the important
aspects in empowering is how the assistance is able
to give an assisting on the empowerment programs.
The approach on the people is crucial so that the
assistance recognizes the people’s potency. The
closer social relation between the assistance and the
people the easier run the empowerment programs.
Therefore, the right step to solve this problem is
Katiah, K., Subekti, S., Supriyono, S. and Nawawi, I.
Massive Change: Reinforce the Role of People’s Empowerment Through Local Potency.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 161-167
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
161

through family empowerment center (Posdaya).
Posdaya is a place to allow a sustainable service on
the member of the family. The treatment is carried
out to maximize the family’s functions so that they
can improve their quality of life (Satriani et al.,
2011). The people’s empowerment through Posdaya
is considered as the effective program because the
assistance gets involved in approaching and
communicating the people door to door.
The activity of Posdaya empowerment is
designed in four pillars which are education, health,
economy, and environment. The four pillars are the
main focus from the Posdaya empowerment, with an
assumption that if the four aspects are evolved and
empowered properly then they could empower the
people because the four aspects comprise the whole
programs in empowering people particularly
economy aspect. Besides that, the legal foundation
of Posdaya is registered in the Constitution of
Indonesia No. 11/2009 article 12 about social
welfare and Presidential Directive No. 2/2010 about
development that corresponds with equality with a
substantial development for the people, justice for
all, and goal achievement Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs).
Viewing Posdaya status is strategic for the
people and becomes one of the advantages to turning
Posdaya into a model of people’s empowerment.
The presence of Posdaya should not have to form
new institution but, evolve or harmonize the
institution. The institution is the initial capital to be
reinforced so that the people’s empowerment
becomes more dynamic and progressive. In evolving
human resources would be right if it is done through
Posdaya because Posdaya proposes “bottom up
program” where the focus is on the independent and
utilizing the resources and local potency as a
solution (Widyana and Lumintang, 2013). The
empowerment program is through Posdaya then the
people are expected to evolve the local potency
whether it is their circumstance or nature potency.
Empowerment base local potency, the people
surely participate in implementing the program. It is
because the people are given motivation and
stimulus to utilize every local potency so that it will
benefit the people in economy aspect to improve
their quality of life. The local potency in every
region is unique and different so that when the
people are able to innovate by utilizing the local
potency then they will benefit. Therefore,
empowerment base on local potency through
family’s empowerment can produce prosperity that
is expected.
2 METHODS
The method that is used in this study is research and
development (R and D) as Borg and Gall have been
developed. Sukmadinata (2007) stated that based on
the experience of doing research and developing
four times, modification the steps of Borg and Gall.
The result of Sukmadinata’s modification can be a
base to arrange the steps of this study, Step 1:
preliminary study consists of literature study and
field study. Step 2: formulating the first model of
Posdaya as a model of people’s empowerment base
on local potency. Step 3: validating the first model
by surveying the field in Posdaya and analyzing
data. Step 4: Validating the model from the
validation result in step 3 by surveying and
analyzing data. The data analysis that is used in this
study comprises data reduction, display data, and
drawing conclusion.
3 STRATEGY AND APPROACH
OF POSDAYA IN
EMPOWERING PEOPLE
BASED ON LOCAL POTENCY
As a people’s institution, Posdaya has a purpose to
empower the family by serving family’s evolvement
continually particularly in religion aspect,
entrepreneurship, education, and environment so that
every family could develop independently (Suyono,
2011). Therefore, to accomplish that mission, it
requires some strategic ways such as delivering
understanding, knowledge, awareness that is carried
out by Posdaya by delivering socializations or
seminar even door to door, this strategy should
correspond with the people’s condition, they become
Posdaya’s role in performing various strategy in
empowering the people.
In generating prosperity for villagers, there are
three pillars that should be implemented by utilizing
village resources such as 1) management of village
resources sustainability in supporting people’s lives
in the village. 2) Utilizing local resources to
reinforce the people’s socioeconomic condition by
empowering villagers, and 3) identifying the local
potency and problem (Astuti, 2012).
A strategy that could be implemented by
Posdaya in empowering people base local potency
which is (a) knowledge, (b) awareness, (c) utilizing
local potency, and (d) habituating in utilizing the
local potency.
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4 THE VALUES THAT CAN BE
EVOLVED IN EMPOWERING
PEOPLE BASED ON LOCAL
POTENCY
In empowering people through Posdaya, there values
that are developed by Posdaya as a model in
empowering people. The values that could be
evolved certainly fitting the people. The general
aims of Posdaya are to invent independent family,
work out every function of the family so that the
quality of family can improve and evolve every
social infrastructure based on local wisdom
(Sumarto and Setiadi, 2014).
In starting an empowerment, it requires social
capital that stimulates empowerment. Social capital
becomes the strength to trigger people’s action in
performing a change. In this case, the main point of
social capital is human resources, social
management, people’s organization, strong local
leadership, value, norm, and moral also good
government (Pranadji, 2006).
The empowerment is not a program that is
delivered to only the one side in a community but,
given to the whole community in a certain area. It
takes value equality where there is no partiality and
viewing all empowered people have the same status
and position (Wijaya, 2010).
The program arrangement until the
implementation of empowerment program requires a
value of togetherness. It aims to combine the people
in receiving a change. The implementation of
empowerment program needs to increase the value
of togetherness, cooperation, and motivation so that
generating good relationship among the people, local
government until facilitators (Sumardjo and
Firmansyah, 2015).
Essentially, empowering is how every individual
is able to be independent to achieve prosperity. The
independence of every individual needs to be
empowered. People’s empowerment through
Posdaya is to empower every family so that when
every family is able to train their independence then
this independence will be imitated by other
communities (Wijaya, 2010).
The process to be independent people through
empowerment is not a thing that could be reached
easily. It requires a long process where every
program of empowerment must be continued. It is
not easy to change the people so that requiring
assistance process in empowering people
sustainability. Until the knowledge and ability that
have been trained and delivered by the assistance
can be internalized by every individual becoming a
part of self and cannot be separated from social
system as the theory states that culture change is
required to support behavior and empowerment to be
more effective (Sumaryadi, 2005).
The success of the empowerment can be viewed
from how active people are in every empowerment
program. With a local potency that every region has,
and supported by people’s participation by assisting,
it is expected that the people are able to innovate in
implementing people’s empowerment. Besides that,
the people will be stimulated through productive
ventures to produce their income through creativity
and the characteristic of local potency (Sumardjo
and Firmansyah, 2015). With the effectiveness of
people’s participation then the people will be able to
invent productive venture and accomplish the
prosperity.
The attempt that is carried out by utilizing local
potency in empowering will benefit the people if
they can manage properly because every community
has the unique local potency that can help or inhibit
the economic growth so that with capital that people
have, could be the first point of strategy for the
development of local economies. To build
competitiveness, every community needs to
comprehend and react based on strength, weakness,
opportunity, and the threat to make their region
interested, for business activity, employee’s
presence, and the support institution (Sukmana,
2010). In this case, the value of togetherness is very
important because in empowering people should be
a backup from the people, if the whole community
can back then will create the values of togetherness
and it will support continuity in empowering people.
For more description of the values that can be
evolved from Posdaya in empowering people base
on local potency can be viewed in figure 1.
Figure 1: The Values That Can Be Evolved from Posdaya
in Empowering People Based on Local Potency.
Massive Change: Reinforce the Role of People’s Empowerment Through Local Potency
163

5 THE PROGRAM OF POSDAYA
AS A MODEL OF PEOPLE’S
EMPOWERMENT BASED ON
LOCAL POTENCY
The program in people’s empowerment should
compromise all aspects, education, economy,
environment, religion, until art and culture. All
aspects must be developed based on local potency in
the empowerment location.
5.1 Education Aspect
Not everybody is able to get the better education.
Otherwise, education is a bridge to improve a
standard of living. The program that can increase the
quality of formal and informal education in a society
can be carried out by utilizing the teacher to teach
the people. By empowering the teacher, it is
expected that the teacher has confident to serve the
people and has the ability in figuring out a solution
when a problem occurs so that with the teacher’s
knowledge then the teacher will have a recognition
and social prestige from the people as a professional
employee (Wardani, 1999).
The relation with people’s empowerment is that
through education, the people can be more
empowered through formal and informal education.
However, this program does not aim to replace
formal education in school but, reinforce people’s
education. In this context, the teachers are utilized
and empowered to deliver education to the people.
5.2 Economy and Entrepreneurship
Aspect
The training and socialization about
entrepreneurship are important to be allowed so that
every individual has capacity in optimizing local
potency for benefiting themselves. One of the efforts
is that the evolvement program of Vocation village.
This program is a manifestation of the
implementation of life skills/entrepreneurship
education program in village spectrum with region
approach which is village area. The Vocation village
program is expected to form a group of venture that
utilizes local resources and local wisdom (Lutfiyah,
2013).
The entrepreneurship knowledge is able to make
people cultivate for working or creating jobs that
correspond with the local resources so that
escalating people’s prosperity and Small-Medium
Enterprises (UMKM). The people’s empowerment
by evolving small-medium enterprises (UMKM) is
required to be matched with the potency, problem,
and people’s characteristic. The actors in small-
medium enterprises (UMKM) need to get involved
actively in determining better future so that it takes
the bottom-up the program to make a big impact for
people’s economic in empowering their small-
medium enterprises (UMKM) (Rifa’I, 2013).
5.3 Environment Aspect
When a community has adhesiveness with natural
resources as the backup for daily needs then it
requires an effort about food security for those who
still count their lives on the agricultural sector, farm,
and stock breeding. The food security is a situation
where every household has an access to get enough
food, security, and health for all the family
members. The four components in food security
consist of availability, accessibility, security, and
sustainability (Prawoto, 2012).
Other efforts are carried out in people’s
empowerment by maintaining environment and
culture which is called ecotourism. Ecotourism is a
concept of tourism sustainable development based
on nature and culture. The aim is to conserve the
environment and allow economic benefit for the
local community.
The empowerment attempt to evolve coastal area
is marine tourism. The concept that is offered in
marine tourism is to deliver the unique of nature, the
characteristic of the marine ecosystem, art and
culture, and local community’s characteristic as a
base strength that every region has. In utilizing
coastal area requires integrated effort to produce
benefit. It takes four aspects that can back eco-
tourism of marine area is ecology aspect, physic,
social, and recreation (Satria, 2009).
The program in environment aspect must give a
real change physically or habitually from the people
to live healthy and safe. The potency in the
environment should be utilized in empowering
people.
5.4 Religion Aspect
In social life, religion links to how one composes a
good relationship with other people and obeys every
rule based on religion that one follows. Generally, a
Ustad is active in resolving religion and social
problem.
The role of Ustad who has religion knowledge
particularly about Islam and capable to teach other
people will be considered as a form of people’s
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empowerment. Ustad plays a big role in increasing
the quality of religious life and escalating tolerance
among religion diversity (Mawardi, 2013). The
program is applied in people’s empowerment can be
a religious theme and comprise whole community
from the children until parents such as the program
of reciting Quran in once a week.
5.5 Social Aspect
The result of empowerment that wishes to be
accomplished is that a social change where the
change focuses on poor people to be more
empowered and capable supplying their needs. Not
only that, the people capable to deliver every
aspiration to the local government and participate in
every social activity and help other communities to
live a better life (Hatu, 2010).
The program that is designed must comprise all
social aspects, and make a real impact on the people
because the people will see and sense the impact in
assessing a program.
5.6 Art and Culture Aspect
Nowadays, many outside cultures enter Indonesia
until invent acculturation and assimilation. It will be
a loss to traditional culture because of the outside
influence so that people’s empowerment needs to
take a part in art and culture where the
empowerment is performed in maintaining
traditional culture due to modernization. Every
region has local wisdom and characteristic from the
local potency that every region has. Therefore, there
should be special events to introduce local wisdom
particularly tradition art because by introducing
traditional art, the local community will generate a
benefit such as financial and traditional cultural
existence (Kurniawan, 2015).
6 THE MODEL OF PEOPLE’S
EMPOWERMENT BASED ON
LOCAL POTENCY THROUGH
POSDAYA
The model of people’s empowerment based on local
potency through Posdaya can be carried out by three
approaches which are (a) based on human resources,
(b) based on natural resources, and (c) based on the
market.
6.1 Based on Human Resources
Potency
The approach and strategy that is performed by
Posdaya in empowering people through local
potency have several approaches such as familial
approach by identifying local community’s potency
and socializing the local potency to the local
community. The obstacle in implementing this
program is that the quality of human resources is
below the standard so that they need to be engaged
in training to improve their cadre because in
empowering a community, human resources is one
of the social capitals that is very important to evolve
(Pranadji, 2006).
Empowerment requires people to improve their
capacity and knowledge so that they capable to work
in every sector (Prawoto, 2012). Besides that,
training and socialization are given to every
individual so that they are skilled in optimizing local
potency. Inequality of education becomes one of the
problems that hardens management process of local
culture so that it requires the help of the local
government in managing and assisting the
community (Satria, 2009). The local government
and facilitator need to train the human resources
about empowerment based on local potency.
6.2 Based on Natural Resources
Potency
Natural potency is a potency that orients to natural
resources. Natural potency can be evolved or
utilized by the people for the benefit. The main
concern nowadays is how to turn the natural
environment into a benefit for the people but, not to
damage the nature.
In managing local potency especially in the
agricultural sector, farms, and sociocultural can be
designed as an object of an economy by offering
tourism based on environment. Moreover, when
people perform the traditional ceremony as the
gratitude of yields (Damayanti, 2014).
The idea of people’s empowerment by
maintaining the environment and culture is called
ecotourism. Eco-tourism is a concept of tourism
sustainable development based on nature and
culture.
When there is a region which has a beauty in a
coastal area can be designed as marine tourism
because the concept that is offered by marine
tourism is to deliver the beauty of nature,
characteristic of the marine ecosystem, and
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165

traditional culture. Utilizing the coastal area requires
integrated effort for economic interest (Satria, 2009).
6.3 Based on Market
In people’s empowerment that puts ahead of the
market is very important to identify consumer’s
interest based on localizing community. Therefore, it
requires analysis of market potency that corresponds
with consumer’s interest and local potency so that
when there is the right examination then the people
will continually evolve. Besides that, the people
need to participate actively in developing a
partnership with the suppliers and distributors to
ensure productive enterprises sustainable (Sumardjo
and Firmansyah, 2015).
The people must recognize how to see the market
and marketing strategy with some creativities to
produce a product so that the people capable to
compete in running their enterprises (Rifa’I, 2013).
Besides that, the production must be innovative.
The product can be categorized as an innovative
product when it is a brand new and different based
on local potency so that the people can reach a
market target that is profitable.
Model of empowerment is described through the
scheme in figure 2:
Figure 2: Model of People’s Empowerment Based on
Local Potency.
7 CONCLUSIONS
The approach of family empowerment center
(Posdaya) based on local potency in empowering
people is carried out so that Posdaya becomes a
place to empower a family to work out their function
properly. Various approaches are performed by
Posdaya that corresponds with the condition or the
community’ needs. The model approach of family
empowerment center (Posdaya) in empowering a
community based on local potency consists of
familial approach, identify the local community
potency, natural potency, and market potency.
The values that are developed from Posdaya as a
model in empowering people based on local potency
which is (a) equality, (b) togetherness, (c) self-
reliance, (d) sustainable, (e) people’s participation,
(f) utilizing local potency.
The program that should be available and
implemented in turning Posdaya into a model of
people’s empowerment based on local potency
comprises education aspect, economy and
entrepreneurship, environment, religion, social, and
art and culture. The model of people’s
empowerment based on local potency through
Posdaya can be carried out by three approaches
which are (a) based on human resources, (b) natural
resources, and (c) based on the market.
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