The Women Skill Improvement Program

The Village Development Office of Buleleng regency, through the women development section, conducts three programs in 2007 to improve the skills of the women in the villages. The head of women development section of Buleleng regency, Anak Agung Putra Megawati, explained that those three programs were improving the women role in the villages, improving the gender equivalence in the villages and improving the women role in the development program. Those programs were conducted in cooperation with the management team of women organization of Buleleng regency. So far, until April 2007, this program was attended by 4,000 women throughout Buleleng.

Anak Agung Putra Megawati also said that they would also conduct education and training program for the poor families, by giving opportunity to 50 people in each village. This program was conducted firstly in the city, and ended in Banjarasem village, Seririt sub district. It was hoped that by this program, the women in Buleleng would be independent and able to earn money to support their family financial.

Besides the development program to the women, local government through Village Development Office also has program for the students in Buleleng. In this 2007, with fund about 243 million rupiah, this program was dedicated to 1500 students in 11 elementary schools, which were categorized as poor schools, in 10 villages in this regency. Those schools were elementary school or SD 1 Rangdu in Seririt sub district, SD 1, 3, Jagaraga in Sawan sub district, SD 1, 2 Bongancina and SD 1 Pelapuan in Busung Biu sub district, SD 1, 2 Tunjung and SD 6 Tajun in Kubutambahan sub district, and SD 1 Celukan Bawang and SD 2 Pengulon in Gerokgak sub district. Anak Agung Putra Megawati said that this program has been implemented three times a week, and so far it has given good result. It was proven by the success of Buleleng regency to be the first winner or the best in the provincial level evaluation for the best implementer of the program in every sub district.

The program for the elementary students was in the form of giving healthy food to those students. In this case, the food given was not main course, but healthy supplement food, like cake, porridge, juice, and others. It was because the purpose of this program was to increase the interest and capability of the students to study, to improve their learning achievement, not to change the bad nutritious condition. This program was conducted to support the government plan, the nine years compulsory education program.

The Empower and Transmigration Agency of Buleleng regency has some programs to improve the skill of the people in Buleleng as well. One of them was education and training program for small and medium enterprises, which was conducted through UPTD LLK – UKM Kalibukbuk Singaraja. The coordinator of the program, Ketut Soka, stated that this year, they have five training packages, which fund was from national budget. Two packages, the electricity weld and automotive repair packages were conducted in Kalibukbuk. While three others, like furniture making and repair was conducted in Sari Mekar village, the processing of agricultural result was in Anturan village, and wood carving in Kayuputih  Melaka village in Sukasada sub district.

The second national budget would be used to conduct six training packages with their toolkit. The packages would be building construction in Panji village, carbide weld in Selat village, the processing of agricultural result in Sukasada village, wood carving in Kalianget village, sewing in Pedawa village and automotive repair in Banjar Tegal village. Each package would be attended by 16 people, and those people would be trained for 240 hours. After getting this education and training program, the participants were hoped to be able to earn money using their own skill.