MPM Muhammadiyah Focuses On Community Economic Empowerment

Chairman of the Community Empowerment Council (MPM) Muhammadiyah Central Leader M Nurul Yamin (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Muhammadiyah Central Leadership Community Empowerment Council (MPM) M Nurul Yamin said MPM Muhammadiyah was focused on efforts to empower the economy of the Indonesian people.

"The Community Empowerment Council identifies the problem of gap, the problem of poverty and the issue of food sovereignty. Therefore, we focus, one, in the agricultural sector," said Nurul Yamin, quoted from Antara, Sunday.

Yamin said this after the opening of the MPM PP Muhammadiyah 2022-2027 National Working Meeting (Rakernas) with the theme "Collaboration of Community Empowerment Ecosystems" took place at Muhammadiyah University Purwokerto (UMP) on July 28-30, 2023.

In the agricultural sector, he said, efforts made by MPM include innovating or updating related to complaints from farmers about high production costs but lower selling prices during the harvest period.

In this case, he continued, the step that MPM took was to try by optimizing production efficiency and optimizing the income side, both in quantity and quality.

"Then the second, in the agricultural sector, we also assist it upstream to downstream. So it's not just production, it's also at the middle level," he explained.

He said the assistance at the middle level, which is a farmer institution, was carried out through Jamaah Tani Muhammadiyah (Jatam).

According to him, this was done to build independent farmer organizations throughout Indonesia.

"Also the farmer's economic institutions. We initiated 100 Muhammadiyah farmer cooperatives in this period starting to stretch," he explained.

Meanwhile, in the downstream sector or market access, he said, MPM has partnered and synergized with Muhammadiyah's internal market, namely Muhammadiyah charity (AUM) such as campuses and hospitals being part of the downstream of the overall empowerment process.

In addition to agriculture, he continued, MPM also highlighted the issue of fishermen and labor issues, both domestic and foreign workers whose reports are now quite intense related to the crime of trafficking in persons (TPPO).

"We have best practices for empowering these workers. And the third is on the disadvantaged sides and other marginalized groups including urban poor," he said.

He said one of the urban poor groups accompanied by MPM was a scavenger community at the Piyungan Integrated Waste Disposal Site (TPST), Bantul Regency, Yogyakarta Special Region.

According to him, at Piyungan TPST there are 500 scavengers who are being accompanied to be informed regarding the waste management policy in the Special Region of Yogyakarta.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor of Muhammadiyah University Purwokerto (UMP) Jebul Suroso said the UMP as Muhammadiyah's business charity provides full support for the activities of the MPM PP Muhammadiyah 2022-2027 National Working Meeting.

"Why is that, one, the UMP is very synergized with the MPM for the UMP program as an MSME House. Second, community empowerment is an inseparable part of universities to serve the community," he explained.

According to him, the synergy between the UMP and the MPM PP Muhammadiyah is also relatively warm through the Community Da'wah Study Center (PSDK) which will continue to be developed.

In addition, he said, the use of research and laboratories for the UMP to strengthen the Community Empowerment Council.

"For example, Mocaf is one of the alternative foods to replace wheat. We support this through our research and we even plan to be able to participate in producing mocaf flour," he said.