Let us Find and Recognize the Potential of the Village to Be Empowered

Light in Bantar Agung -

Asep Amirudin

Preening -

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the cultural advancement program for villages through community empowerment was successfully implemented. This program is intended to strengthen the village’s efforts in exploring the potential of local culture as a solution to answer actual problems.

Although the pandemic intensifies in mid2021, the active role of rural communities in this program is not receding but is getting more massive. The enthusiasm of the villagers is worth appreciating.

The program, launched by the Director General of Culture of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology, Hilmar Farid in April 2021 and managed through the Directorate of Cultural Development and Utilization, began with the preparation of a policy framework. The community empowerment manual was compiled by M Panji Kusumah, I Gusti Agung Anom Astika, and Kusen Alipah Hadi, while the preparation of technical instructions of village culture advancement was compiled by the Empowerment Working Group, Directorate of Cultural Development and Utilization. The manual and technical instructions are very important because they are a reference for the implementation of the village cultural advancement program.

The program is divided into three stages, namely the stage of finding and recognizing cultural potential, development, and utilization. In the three stages, each initiative was initiated by Daya Warga through assistance by Daya Desa. Daya Desa is a companion of village culture as a facilitator that facilitates and allows the increase of the power in the village community (subject) as well as an increase in the cultural power of the village (object).

Daya Desa is equipped with training to understand the development methodology of village culture in a participatory and experiential-based learning so it will increase the power, ability and confidence of the community in knowing the cultural potential and condition of the village. Meanwhile, Daya Warga is a group of empowered

local villagers who are the subject of the promotion of village culture that is very instrumental in finding and recognizing the potential of the village.

The work of promoting village culture began with the assistance of ‘Daya Warga’ by ‘Daya Desa’ with the aim of finding and recognizing the cultural potential and condition of the village through participatory mapping. After that, Daya Desa together with Daya Warga reviewed the findings through gathering, discussion forums, shared learning forums, participatory map alignment and formulation of village problems to produce idea maps along with villagelevel cultural activity designs. After the development stage, they realized the ideas that had been discussed through the widespread involvement of all villagers with one of the goals of improving the welfare of the community. This is called the utilization stage. That is a general idea of how each of these stages is implemented. Although equipped with workshops, Village Power and Daya Warga still have difficulty in understanding the potential of culture in the field. This obstacle arises due to the pandemic situation that encourages many villages to cancel various cultural activities or apply restrictions on activities. For this reason, the Directorate of Cultural Development and Utilization facilitates ‘Daya Warga’ by ‘Daya Desa’ to consult with online sources through training clinic forums that improve understanding and get solutions to problems in the field.

The problems faced by each village are different, ranging from the absence of village government support, the existence of a ban on holding meetings, limited power of citizens to meet potential, to difficulty in accessing information sources. One solution provided by the source is to hold a limited number of meetings, looking for information through books and the internet, although communication networks and the internet are also a problem for villages, especially those that are remote. Another problem is the unstable internet network, even though the data on the page is important for material analysis of promotion policies for the village culture that can be accessed by the village, district, and central governments.

With all the limitations due to the pandemic and a relatively short time, 320 villages managed to realize the potential of the village and input the results to the cultured village page and the results were verified. At this stage, there are still a number of challenges, such as the withdrawal of some villages from the program because they are unable to carry out the role of facilitator in the midst of various technical difficulties in the field. In Liyu village, for example, ‘Daya Desa’ was asked to step down because it was considered unable and replaced with others so that the village continued the cultural advancement program to the utilization stage. Of the 320 villages in the finding-recognizing stage, 271 villages progressed to the

Culture Village -

Big Mask - Absorbing -

No

STATUS OF OBJECTS OF ADVANCEMENT OF CULTURE AND CULTURAL PROPERTY STATUS OF OBJECTS OF ADVANCEMENT OF CULTURE AND CULTURAL PROPERTY

Growing Still Surviving Been Reduced Endangered Extinct Broken Destroyed Dissapear

1 Oral Tradition 23 131 58 64 12 - - -

2 Manuscripts 3 Customs 10 32 4 12 3 - - 77 533 104 75 14 - - -

4 People’s Game

25 100 110 84 35 - - 5 Traditional Sports 19 64 64 43 12 - - 6 Traditional Knowledge 153 459 130 81 11 - - 7 Traditional Technology 64 237 89 60 15 - - 8 Art 182 393 123 119 20 - - 9 Language 10 35 13 15 2 - - 10 Rite 32 207 34 33 8 - - -

11 Cultural Heritage 63 281 24 54 1 22 4 3

Table: Objects of Advancement of Culture and Cultural Property

development and utilization stage, while the rest were still constrained in the creation of an action plan. Results at the development stage were also verified and it turns out that many action plans still put forward the festival. Verifiers suggest that the action plan that was made meets the aspects of possible sustainability, the interrelationship between its potential, problems and actions, aspects of independence, the participation of villagers, as well as its development potential such as training, making process videos, and creating books.

Here is the data on the number of village culture potential based on 10 Objects of Advancement of Culture (OPK) and cultural properties obtained from the cultured village page from the finding and recognizing stage of cultural potentials in 320 villages.

In addition to village culture potential data and Objects of Advancement of Culture, there are also data on village history, cultural actors, village infrastructure facilities of community expectations, problems, photos and videos of village potential. This program is designed with a system that allows the data to be continuously updated and the application continues to be refined according to needs.

The data collection results are part of the Integrated Cultural Data Collection System, which is a national-level data system that collects all cultural data from various sources. The more villages that include their potential data, the more accurate the basis of cultural policy making in Indonesia. In addition, the data is also useful for the respective village, namely as a mirror to read development opportunities that are sensitive to the local context, and can further support the socio-economic life of the community

(Dewilisa Finifera, Directorate of Cultural Development and Utilization

of Kemdikbudristek). Kemdikbudristek).