JAKARTA – Productive zakat management can be one of the doors to poverty alleviation. Its effectiveness can undoubtedly change the status of its beneficiaries or mustahik, to muzakki or zakat payers. However, this step can be achieved by applying effective zakat-based programs as the key. Like Dompet Dhuafa, it presents a regional program as a productive zakat management step.
Of course, this step has produced various stories of the empowerment of mustahik to transform into muzakki. For example, the new face of farmers comes from Peasant Village in Lembang, Bandung, West Java. In the pioneering area program, Dompet Dhuafa, through productive zakat management based on vegetable farming, strengthens the empowerment of farmers on their land.
“The Peasant Village is a prayer answered because we are concerned for farmers. The farmers are very filthy, little incomers and erratic. Then the farmers supply money to rich people all this time due to being blind to market prices. Until 2018, the idea of Mang Ade and Mang Dadan presented the Peasant Village that we pioneered with Dompet Dhuafa. Then in 2020, we strengthened it by making it legal under the umbrella of cooperatives. So, Farmers Village and this cooperative are a blessing for us farmers here. Implementing neat operational standards, using the latest technology, and marketing according to trends continue to strengthen the efforts of Desa Tani. Please pray, hopefully, this program will continue until the end of the world,” said Jajang, one of the beneficiaries of Desa Tani and a cooperative administrator in Desa Tani.
In line with Jajang, Metrialdi or familiarly called Nomek, 2019, has established himself to join the coffee farmers assisted by Dompet Dhuafa and eagerly joined as part of the economic empowerment program of Kopi Solok Sirukam Dompet Dhuafa. This program became the beginning of Nomek getting a gap to change life economically.
“The first coffee harvest, Alhamdulillah, I got satisfactory results from selling coffee cherries. I can buy new school clothes for my son, who is about to enter junior high school. Of course, it also provides additional income for the wife,” said Nomek.
Hope is not only poured out from the beneficiaries or mustahik alone. But also the hope expressed by donors and Dompet Dhuafa as the manager of community zakat funds. As stated by Bambang Suherman, Program Director of Dompet Dhuafa, when met in his office Tuesday (11/4/2023) afternoon, “Today, of course, we thank Allah SWT, what is produced by the productive zakat program can benefit the community. From today until now, Dompet Dhuafa will focus on zakat fund distribution programs that feel the benefits, not just for a moment. But able to change their status and living conditions (mustahik) in the long future. Today we hope that no more mustahik give up and despair. Because zakat can change their life status from mustahik to muzakki”.