By: Mirwan Achmad)*
The Jokowi-JK Government has a priority agenda that is “Building Indonesia from the Suburbs by Strengthening the Regions and Villages in the Framework of the Unitary State”. To make it happen, was born Law No. 6 of 2014 on the Village that regulate the development and empowerment of village communities pursued through counselors efforts. This counselors effort becomes one of the important steps that must be done to accelerate the achievement of self-reliance and community welfare. The independence and welfare of the community can be achieved through the improvement of knowledge, attitude, skills, behavior, ability, awareness, and utilizing the resources in accordance with the essence of the problems and priorities of the needs of the village community.
The fundamental difference of the counseling model after the enactment of the Village Law is the demand for village counselor to be able to carry out social transformation by fundamentally changing the government’s “control and mobilization” approach to villages into a “village community empowerment” approach. Villagers and village governments as a single unit of self governing community are empowered to be able to present themselves as independent communities. Thus, villages are encouraged to be the subject of Indonesian development drivers from the periphery.
Mentoring is a continuous activity in facilitating individuals / groups / communities to develop themselves. Mentoring is commonly done in economic, social, technical, and so on issues in accordance with the program of agencies or institutions that run the mentoring program. Ideally, the mentoring reflects the togetherness or parallel between the accompanist and the accompanist.
Currently, the government is reopening the recruitment of 13,053 village counselors to be deployed throughout Indonesia. In order to achieve effective and efficient village development performance and empowerment with village facilitators, the Directorate General for Development and Empowerment of Village Communities (Ditjen PPMD) Ministry of Village, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration (Kemendes PDTT) has established and issued Standard Operations and Procedures SOP) Guidance and Control of Professional Assistants.
Becoming a facilitator must uphold the ultimate goal of empowering the community rather than deceiving the community. This means it takes full sincerity in the mentoring process. In addition to sincere perseverance, patience and sustainability are the foundations that a facilitator must possess. Therefore, the government’s priority agenda to build Indonesia from the periphery is expected to be realized with the presence of village counselors.
)* The author is CIDISS Contributor