Entrepreneurship: An Alternative Concept for Economic Empowerment of People with Disability

Dr. Handojo Tjandrakusuma

I. Introduction

Economic independence is an important issue for people with disability. Efforts have been done to economically empower people with disability such as conducting vocational training programs and implementing employment quota system. Those effort are still limited in coverage and effectiveness. Entrepreneurship concept is an economic approach that has been implemented by a wider community. However, this concept has not yet been utilized in economically empowering people with disability. The development and implementation of entrepreneurship concept will in fact be able to develop the economic condition of people with disability.

II. The Meaning of Entrepreneurship

There is no theoretical definition of entrepreneurship. The understanding of the term “entrepreneurship“ comes from experiences of many business ventures conducted by individuals who have proven their ability to develop their own private businesses. They started from “ having nothing” to having a profitable business.

There is a good example, it is of a young man from a village and his nickname is Jack. Jack started his business by opening a fresh milk stall. He named the stall as Pusat Gizi Si Jack (Jack’s Nutrition Center). It is in fact a good marketing strategy. Since he was a boy, and at that time in elementary school, he had been working for someone who owned a fresh milk stall. He worked there until he graduated from Senior High School. By that time, he had already become a trusted employee in managing that business. Inside his head, he was determined to open up his own business so that he would have the freedom to expand it. He then stopped working for his boss and with his small amount of savings; he actualized his dream by opening up his own fresh milk stall. However, even with such a difficult start, because of his years of experience plus determination, Jack finally succeeded in developing his business. In a few years time, he succeeded in opening more than ten branches of fresh milk stalls. On average, he employees three to four people in each branch. He was then able to buy a house and a car from the profit of his business. Then he also decided to continue his study that had stopped after graduating from High School.

There is another story that is just as interesting. A middle-aged mother at a point in her business life, had to change from selling clothes to selling plastic flowers. She had taken this decision for two reasons. First, there are more competitors in selling clothes. Second, she noticed that plastic flowers seemed to have a good prospect in the future. Since then, she displayed her plastic flowers beside the left over from her clothing products. Her talent and business sense were actually correct. She was able to develop her new business. The profits from selling plastic flowers could fulfill her living needs better than the profits from selling clothes.

From the two examples above, it can be concluded and come to an understanding that entrepreneurship is more or less a productive business activity, which is based on the resources within the individuals themselves. Those resources are the mindset or thinking pattern (amongst them are motivation and self confidence, optimism, and daring to take risks), skills, experiences and ready-to-use expertise. Capital and money are needed, but they are not the most important things. Internal motivation is the primary factor to start and develop the business. External resources can be used to support the business activities.

Practical steps to building a business activity based on entrepreneurship

a. Knowing variety of resources

The variety of resources that can support entrepreneurship are as follows:

Individual’s personality pattern or the mindset that one needs to start with including motivation, optimism, diligence, hardworking, honesty, daring to take risks, etc.
Individual’s personal abilities / interests: talent, hobbies, education, experiences, skills / expertise.
Individual’s physical resources: in the form of capitals, e.g property and financial resources.
External resources which can be mobilized: family, friends, social groups, private and governmental organizations, etc.

b. Good Preparation

This involves a number of steps that can be pursued in starting and developing a business. They are as follows:

Information gathering
The first step to start a business is gathering information to find the kind of business that is going to be established.
Observing existing economic activities. This is intended to explore the most suitable business to establish.
Reading books, magazines, participating in seminars, consultation with experts or coaches/mentors.

c. Ready and skilled in business competitions

In conducting a business, there is always competition. Factors that determine the results competition are promotion, product, price, and place. In the world of business, competition plays a major role, therefore an entrepreneur has to be ready to face the risks in his / her business.

III. Various ways for efforts in economic empowerment for people with disability

Millions of members of the community, who have limited education, knowledge, and capital, have developed entrepreneurship in the forms of establishing small to medium scale businesses. This shows that through entrepreneurship they succeed in earning a living. Have people with disability taken benefits from entrepreneurship as an economic empowerment?

A. Conventional strategy of economic empowerment for people with disability

There are some ways that have been developed by organizations or institutions for people with disability to earn a living. Those ways are: pure charity, vocational rehabilitation, and implementing the regulation of quote of people with disability in employment. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Pure Charity

In the beginning, people help the lives of people with disability directly in the form of money and necessities for daily living. Families and organizations are often involved, in what we call pure charity actions as mentioned above. Their motivation is inspired by the feeling of pity or religious calling.

This approach now tends to be less acceptable because it causes dependency of people with disability. Pure charity is still needed in some cases especially for people with disability who cannot afford to be economically independent.

Vocational rehabilitation

In many countries, the strategy that is implemented to prepare people with disability to be economically independent is by establishing vocational rehabilitation centers.

The advantage of this approach is that people with disability receive full attention from their trainers and mentors, especially in attending to their special needs. For example the environment and facilities that are accessible for them, adapted supporting devices according to their own disabilities are also available, etc.

There are some weaknesses in this approach. The first weakness is the limited capacity. Based on experience in Indonesia, rehabilitation centers (which are managed by the government and privately owned) can only hold up to five to seven percent or about three hundred people with disability every year. For developing countries with its limited resources, to establish a new vocational rehabilitation center is considered to be costly.

The second weakness is that there are few alternatives vocational programs. There is a number of skill training program packages, such as photography, sewing, salon, carving etc. Preferences do not seem to exist for most trainees. The trainees’ interests and talents very often can not be accommodated in the existing training packages.

The third weakness is the lack of entrepreneurial skill of the trainees. In vocational training center the trainees are trained in professional skills. To survive in the real live setting the trainees need to have entrepreneurial skill, which is often not prioritized in the vocational training center setting.

Quota System

Another effort that is being promoted by the society through a regulation is to have a quota of people with disability for job opportunities in formal business establishment.

However, in developing countries, this effort is still faced with unready infrastructure and suprastructure, both from the government and as well as from the industries.

B. Entrepreneurship as an alternative strategy in economic empowerment for people with disability

At present, there are already people with disability that run small to medium scale businesses. This means entrepreneurship has already been developed by some people with disability, yet still in a very limited scale. As an alternative strategy, entrepreneurship needs to be developed systematically and progressively. It needs to be taken as a mainstream effort in solving the problems of poverty especially of people with disability.

Entrepreneurship is relatively unfamiliar both to people with disability themselves and disability organizations. This is due to the inappropriate mindset or perspectives of people with disability themselves as well as the community including disability organizations that people with disability will not be able to establish and compete in real business setting.

There are strengths in entrepreneurship strategy. The first one is there is no limitation in choices and opportunity for people with disability to establish their own business according to their interests and initiative which is the basis of successful entrepreneurship.

By becoming an entrepreneur, a person with disability can optimize their personal abilities to empower themselves economically.

IV. Strategic steps to empower economic capacity for people with disability with an entrepreneurship concept

Apart from fulfilling conditions for entrepreneurship in general which have been mentioned before, there are some strategic steps on how to promote entrepreneurship among people with disability. These steps are:

a. Changing the mindset of people with disability and disability organizations

The appropriate mindset that is supportive to entrepreneurial activities of people with disability needs to be promoted.

b. Taking advantage in the recent advance of technology

Advances in information and communication technology, transportation, and also the improved digital technology have made the moves of ideas and creativities in establishing work easier for all people including the people with disability. Mobility barriers, communication and information that have previously restricted people with disability in creative activities, bit by bit have been answered with the progress of technology. As of examples, there is the SMS facility for the deaf, computer that can speak for the blind, and many more. Internet technology is also making communication even easier and promotion even faster, and also more economical and of global reach. Therefore, advances in technology will ease people’s life including people with disability to become an entrepreneur.

c. Preparing special mentor/coach

Remembering that the entrepreneurship concept is still relatively new in efforts to strengthen the economic productive capacity for people with disability, special mentors/coaches are needed. The role of these mentors is to guide the people with disability in entrepreneurship. The function of a mentor is to be capable of giving motivation, sharing experiences and knowledge, give guidance and direction also reminding them if there are things that can bring them some disadvantages.

A qualified person with disability can be a mentor for his/her peers. He/she will be a better mentor because he/she is deeper in knowing and understanding about people with disability’s problems.

d. Conducting study, research, etc.

The concept of entrepreneurship is generally not yet known among activists of disability fields. To introduce and actualize entrepreneurship concepts in efforts to strengthen economic productive capacity for people with disability, we still need to promote, study, do research, and other development efforts.

V. Conclusion

Entrepreneurship is an important alternative strategy for economic empowerment of people with disability.

Development and advancement in technology in the 21^st century have made entrepreneurship activities for people with disability easier to be actualized.

Considering that entrepreneurship concept is still relatively new for people with disability and the disability organizations, it is necessary to conduct extensive research and development projects. This can then be followed by promotion of entrepreneurship activities conducted among people with disability.

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Main	Programme	Materials	Online	Lanzhou

	UN ESCAP/CDPF Field Study cum Regional Workshop on Poverty Alleviation among Persons with Disabilities Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China, 25-29 October 2004