Family Planning Village Program and Village Community Empowerment in Deli Serdang Regency, North Sumatera Province, Indonesia

Abstract

The Family Planning Program was one of the programs in the New Order Era which was considered successful in reducing the rate of population growth in Indonesia. At the beginning of the Reformation Era, attention to the Family Planning Program weakened and the impact on the rate of population growth was increasing. To anticipate, President Jokowi asked the National Population and Family Planning Agency to re-invigorate the Family Planning Program through the Family Planning Village Program Policy. The the Family Planning Village Program is a cross-sectoral program with the aim of reducing birth rates, improving reproductive health, and empowering communities in order to improve their welfare. This study aims to see how the Family Planning Village Program contributes to the empowerment of rural communities. The research design used combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches with a dominant-less dominant model, where the qualitative approach is used as the dominant approach, while the quantitative approach is the less dominant. The number of respondents in this study were 300 people, while the informants consisted of the village government, the management of the Family Planning Village, community leaders and religious leaders. The research results show was conducted in three Family Planning Villages in the three subdistricts in Deli Serdang Regency, North Sumatera Province. The results showed that there were changes that occurred in the three villages studied after the implementation of the Family Planning Village Program. These changes can be seen, among others, from the increasing awareness of the village community in terms of health, both for women who are still productive and the elderly. Mothers of productive age routinely check their pregnancy at the Community Health Center or at the Integrated Service Post. For elderly residents, they also have awareness to live a healthy life after receiving an explanation of services from the health side through the Elderly Family Development Program. Changes also occur in teenagers through the Youth Information and Counseling Center Program, so that they get good and correct information about reproduction so as to reduce early marriage, and avoid the dangers of drugs. Meanwhile, for economic empowerment, through the Prosperous Family Income Improvement Program, villagers also receive counseling and plant seeds that can be used as an additional source of income. Cross-sectoral programs that are the advantages of the Family Planning Program have begun to be seen, but have not been maximized, so there is still a view that the Family Planning Village is a program of the National Population and Family Planning Agency or the Regional Family Planning Agency alone, even though the Family Planning Village should be the responsibility of all parties (Device Organization Region) according to the needs of each village community in the context of the success of the Family Planning Program and the welfare of the community.