Promoting Social Justice through Philantropy: Women`s Activism as Civil Society (A Reflection on the Emergence of Yayasan Sahabat Ibu in Yogyakarta)

Abstract

The emergence of woman`s activism as civil society is driven by high sense of humanity to overcome the various social inequalities that have so far been difficult, especially women who often threaten by patriarchal social, economic and political structures. This sense of awareness of woman's problem is then translated into various social philanthropy programs to reduce various forms of gaps and weakness of society. This paper discusses how women activism, in this case is Yayasan Sahabat Ibu (YSI), have participated to solve various social problems, especially related to women. By operating qualitative method and theory of civil society and social justice philanthropy, this paper reflects on the rise of YSI and It`s role in promoting social justice. YSI as women activists involved in reducing existing social inequality through its activism in the philanthropic movement. YSI mobilizes the available resources and then distributes it to the needy. The transformation of the organization is followed by a paradigm shift and activism orientation from charity to productive empowerment as an effort for long-term struggle. YSI activists are then able to develop their movement by organizing themselves and transforming into non-governmental organizations concerned in empowering women by educative (PINTAR) and productive economic (PRIMA) program.

Journey from a Humanitarian NGO to a Social Enterprise in Malta

“…Philanthropy has its roots in the Greek words philos and anthropos (love and human, hence, love of people). It centres on: 1) meeting the basic needs such as food, health, shelter; 2) fighting for equality and human rights, 3) democratization, 4) community capacity building, and 5) public participation in decision making (Widianto, Hadi, & Irawan, 2018) . Philanthropy can be carried out by someone possessing the necessary resources (usually money, knowledge, or time) that can be used to help the needy.…”

“…It is a resource of philanthropic importance as discussed earlier (Charitable, 2019) . As any resource it has to be managed well - Widianto et al (2018) stress the importance of good management skills in order to ensure philanthropic success. The EU also stresses that social enterprises often suffer from poor business organisation skills (European Commission, Directorate E, 2015) .…”