A New Strategy to Empower People Through A Different Business Approach

Indonesia has been into the system of receiving conditional cash payments, recipients of the government-funded social assistance Family Hope Program (PKH) where people have seen their livelihoods change despite the things happening this year.

Looking back, The Hope Family Program, hereinafter referred to as PKH is a Beneficiary Family Conditional Social Assistance Program designated as the PKH Beneficiary Family. The Government of Indonesia has been introducing PKH since 2007 as an attempt to improve poverty reduction. Also known globally as the Conditional Cash Transfers, the Social Security Policy has proven very effective in addressing the poverty faced by these countries, especially the issue of chronic poverty.

In view of this, Ekki Syamsulhakim a senior security specialist at the World Bank, shared that the initiative had effectively raised school attendance rates, decreased stunting, and prevented child labour by creating an alternative safety net for extremely poor families.

For this reason, In order to help them keep their companies afloat, the Social Affairs Ministry has initiated the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative targeting graduate recipients of the Family Hope Program (PKH).

Director General of Social Empowerment of the Ministry, Edi Suharto highlighted that Prokus is aimed at empowering people through business approaches. In view of this, The first solution is the B-for-S business approach to counter social risk, while the second is the B plus S plan, a people’s empowerment business and social inclusion.

It is predicted that the initiative would reduce hunger and unemployment. Prokus consists of three components known as the Triple Force, namely Working Capital Reward Social Assistance, Company Mentoring Incubation, and Social Mentoring.

Oorange Unpad (Padjajaran University), the State Polytechnic of  Semarang, ZFN Agape Indonesia, Bina Swadaya and mentors from the social affairs office in the sub-districts were interested in administering the curriculum.

The enterprise initiative is part of the government’s action to assist graduate PKH recipients to succeed in this pandemic even suharto said this adding that this is an anchor of the social empowerment program of the ministry.

In 2020, in the five regions of Majalengka District, West Bandung District, Jakarta, Semarang District, and Bantul District, the Prokus Fund was allocated Rp3.5 million each to one thousand graduated PKH beneficiaries.