A Number of Villages Will Become Pilots for Social Resilience Innovation Villages

KLATEN (November 18, 2020) - Social resilience of rural communities is the basic capital for national economic recovery

The Social Education Research and Counseling Agency (BP3S) of the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs through the Social Counseling Center (Puspensos) in collaboration with the Deputy for Strengthening National Innovation of the Ministry of Research and Technology National Research and Innovation Agency (Kemenristek BRIN) will build a Resistant Innovation Village Social activities in 15 villages as pilot villages.

As an initial survey, the team from the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Research and Technology of BRIN conducted a survey in one of the villages that would later become a pilot, namely in Kwarasan Village, Juwiring District, Klaten Regency.

The Head of Social Counseling Center, Hasim said this program was a pilot project to stimulate the economy and reduce rural poverty, which was initiated by the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs together with the Ministry of Research and Technology BRIN.

"This program is to realize a socially resilient innovation village by providing technological infrastructure to be useful for assisting rural economic development and education in order to succeed in social development," said Hasim in an initial survey event to identify socially resilient villages.

Furthermore, according to the Head of Puspensos, this is necessary because village community activities are still traditional, even though they are dealing directly with the potential of abundant natural resources.

"Therefore, innovation is needed to maintain an economic-ecological balance in natural resource management," he added

As a continuation of the pilot project, the Social Resilience Innovation Village program will be held in 15 villages throughout Indonesia as an initial target by promoting various superior products in each region.

This effort is carried out by transferring technology to rural communities in order to increase the added value of a village innovation product before it is widely produced to the community.

At the same time, Wihatmoko, a representative from the BRIN Ministry of Research and Technology, said that the Social Resilience Innovation Village was also a medium for disseminating the results of our research.

"From thousands of villages in Indonesia, we together with the Ministry of Social Affairs took 15 villages as samples to be pilots in this social resilience innovation village, meaning that in the future from this pilot village, it is hoped that villages in Indonesia will follow suit," he said.

Kwarasan village head Kris Sutrininingsih said that currently the villagers are developing rice farming, paper and umbrella industries.

Also present on this occasion were representatives of the Social Office of Central Java Province, the Social Office of Klaten Regency, the Head of Juwiring District, and residents from Kwarasan Village.