COMMUNITY-BASED POVERTY ALLEVIATION USING PARTICIPATORY RURAL APPRAISAL

People living in mountainous and rural areas are more vulnerable to living in poverty due to many factors. This is shown by the high poverty rate in the BPS data and GAKIN (Poor Family) list. Most farmers and laborers are people living in rural areas. The financial condition of the farmers and laborers is considered worse than other communities (the more poor of the poor). Poverty alleviation and community empowerment programs set by the government for the past decades are proven to be not entirely successful and not as expected, followed by many failures in implementing the programs. It was because the empowerment model was Top Down, from the government to the people with pre-determined criteria which are standard and not based on situations, conditions, and occupations of the program target communities. This study aimed to get a community empowerment model which is right on target, based on criteria approach directly explored from the program target communities. The resulting Participatory Rural Appraisal method produces village social condition or village map which shows the potentials, problems, opportunities, and strengths of the community to be the basis for problem solving, program planning, achievement and joint monitoring consistent with their potential and ability