Empowerment of Karang Taruna as an Effort to Sustainability of Rural Economic Growth in Madura Island

Abstract

Rural economic growth is a crucial matter to be concerned because most of the Indonesian population lives in rural areas. On the other hand, rural economic growth so far is still far behind with economic growth in urban areas. This lag needs to find a solution in order to provide a multiplier effect on the sustainability of development, such as reducing urbanization flows, equal distribution of urban and rural population income, etc. One solution that can be pursued is by empowering youth organizations (Karang Taruna) as an effort for economic sustainability in the countryside. However, the empowerment of these Karang Taruna is faced with a bitter reality, namely the problem of unemployment. Nationally, in 2016 according to BPS records the open unemployment rate reached 5.50 percent. However, there was a decline in 2017 to 5.33%. Madura Island, especially Bangkalan and Sampang Regencies have the same problem. This phenomenon of high unemployment in productive age is certainly a separate social problem in society. On the other hand today the existence of Karang Taruna as a youth organization that actually serves to help solve the problem of unemployment, especially among young people (productive) still tends to be barren. On this basis, this study aims to find a solution to overcome unemployment among young people through youth empowerment. This study uses a qualitative research design with depth interviews with selected respondents to obtain the required data. The results obtained from this study are the need for organizational management as a concrete step to address the challenges of the problem of youth organization in addition to the need to grow and develop professional cadets of youth organizations.