Improving Skills and Empowering Women Community through Gayatri Womens’ School in Grenden Village, Jember, Indonesia

Womens’ empowerment plays an important role in improving family welfare. Womens’ empowerment can be done through increasing access to education, skills, economic opportunities, health, and participation in decision-making in various fields. This study aims to improve the skills of Womens’ groups in Grenden Village, Jember, Indonesia through non-formal education, namely the Gayatri Womens’ School. The Gayatri Womens’ School was established with the main objective of providing training and non-formal education to women in Grenden Puger Village to face various challenges in terms of skills and employment opportunities for women. This study uses a descriptive qualitative research approach to explore the research subjects. The subjects of this study include Womens’ groups in Grenden Village who are members of the Gayatri Womens’ School, consisting of one person representing each study group, family welfare empowerment (PKK), and Integrated Service Post cadres. The data analysis technique uses the Miles and Hubberman interactive model which consists of 4 stages, namely data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The implementation of the Gayatri Womens’ School activities consists of the stages of planning, implementation, evaluation, and sustainability. Gayatri Womens’ school training activities were carried out in 6 study groups, namely Krajan 1 class, Krajan II class, Kapuran class, Kumitir class, Karangsono class, and Karetan class. Gayatri Womens’ school activities were able to increase income and improve the environment through the utilization of local potentials such as corn silk tea, fertilizer from corn cobs, corn husk crafts, hair clips, and photo frames from shells, eco print batik, hanging pots from coconut shells and corn milk. Gayatri Womens’ school activities can empower skills to foster an independent and creative attitude in achieving sustainable human resource development.