e-ISSN: 2723-6692 p-ISSN: 2723-6695
Journal of Indonesian Social Sciences, Vol. 5, No. 6, June 2024 1362
Microfinance activities can help people conduct small-scale transactions with the ease of loans from
informal assessments of borrowers and light collateral such as group guarantees or voluntary
deposits. Microfinance also influences a wide range of economic, socio-political, or cultural access, as
well as personal and psychological aspects. In the economic aspect, microfinance can affect business
development, in the socio-political or cultural aspects, microfinance has the potential to influence the
movement of society from the informal sector to the formal sector by forming associations, and in the
personal or psychological aspects, microfinance can grow power in the business community.
Furthermore, in providing facilities and infrastructure, the Depok City Wirausaha Baru (WUB)
Program in 2023 provides building facilities used to implement the Training at Hotels, District Offices,
Village Offices, and Companion Houses. Facilities/infrastructure also include marketing facilities,
including an online market through Dkerens, bazaars as a means of promotion through product titles,
and Depok Expo and MSME Centre Outlets.
At the mentoring stage, 81 (eighty-one) Companions were dispatched to help the trainees
develop themselves through guidance, consultation, and advocacy to overcome problems in business
development. Companions in the Depok City Wirausaha Baru (WUB) Program in 2023 will receive
debriefing / TOT with coaching skills, business management, financial management, and other
materials delivered to the fostered participants. The role of the Companion is very necessary in this
stage of the Wirausaha Baru (WUB) program because the participants of the New Entrepreneurship
Program will practice what they have learned in the Training stage.
2. Materials and Methods
The approach used in this study is qualitative. This approach was chosen to obtain in-depth,
accurate, and comprehensive data adapted to the field conditions (Neuman, 2014). Denzin and Lincoln
(2005) also mentioned that qualitative research is a process used to produce a deeper understanding
of a social phenomenon by exploring personal data of interactions with research participants and
analyzing the data using flexible and reflective techniques. According to Rubin and Babbie, (2011),
qualitative research seeks to produce a deep meaning of the experience of facts from human behavior
and is intended to produce qualitative data. Theoretically, detailed observations and data obtained
cannot be easily reduced. This type of research is descriptive research. Neuman (2014) defines
descriptive research as having the goal of describing research by using words or numbers, profiles,
type classifications, or specific steps to answer research questions such as when, where, how, and
whom. By using the type of descriptive research, this research is made to describe systematically, in-
depth, detailed, and factual related to community empowerment through the assistance activities of
the Depok City WUB Program. The city of Depok was chosen as the research locus because Depok has
continuously and consistently run the Wirausaha Baru (WUB) program and similar programs since 2017.
3. Results and Discussions
Community development is one of the elements of empowerment, which, according to Dunham
(1958), aims to improve welfare through cooperative efforts and develop community independence
with technical assistance from the government or voluntary institutions. The 2023 Depok City
Wirausaha Baru (WUB) Program empowers the community by developing entrepreneurial skills.
Capacity building is provided in the form of training, assistance, capital, and the provision of facilities