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BAZNAS empowers village residents through ‘qurban’
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he National Alms Agency (BAZNAS), sanctioned by the government to distribute alms at the national level, recently announced a program to empower village residents through the ritual of qurban (slaughtering sacrificial animals), which will be performed during Idul Adha on Aug. 22.
During a press conference in mid-July, BAZNAS chairman Bambang Sudibyo said the agency sought to accomplish the abovementioned goal by sourcing animals for the Idul Adha qurban ritual from small animal breeders in various villages.
Bambang explained that instead of buying the animals from middlemen in big cities, most of whom were already economically empowered, BAZNAS wanted to encourage individuals to buy the animals directly from small breeders in villages, which often lacked access to decent facilities and infrastructure.
He went on to say that soon after the animals were slaughtered during Idul Adha, the meat would be distributed among the poor in the villages from where the animals were sourced, creating a full socioeconomic empowerment cycle.
By enjoying the meat of the animals sourced from their villages, instead of the meat being distributed in big cities where most people had relatively easy access to nutrition, village residents could get a nutritional supply of meat, he explained.
“We see qurban as more than just an annual religious ritual as we can also maximize the economic empowerment aspect of the ritual through [our animal sourcing method]. By using this distribution cycle, we can help villagers enjoy economic benefits from the economically empowered urbanites who buy the animals directly from their villages,” Bambang said, explaining how the distribution method also helped to mitigate socioeconomic inequality.
BAZNAS has run the initiative, called Kurban berdayakan desa (empowering villages through qurban) since 2017. Last year, the agency held the program in 20 provinces, slaughtering 700 animals in total.
The program also actively involves BAZNAS Breeding Centers in seven provinces: North Sumatra, Lampung, Banten, West Java, Central Java, East Java and East Nusa Tenggara.
The breeding centers seek to empower villagers by donating money to them to procure seeds to grow plants to feed their animals and other facilities necessary to set up a farm, while providing the villagers training and workshops to boost their agricultural skills.
BAZNAS enables those who conduct qurban do so conveniently through the agency’s various platforms: starting from physical booths, banking channels to e-commerce payment methods. The agency has also set up public alms payment offices across the country.
