Poverty eradication in Malaysia: the needs for skilled community worker

Community work is a branch of social work practice that aims to help empower communities, especially in poverty eradication programs. In community work, community workers help communities plan, determine needs and implement collective actions. In order to provide quality service to the community, community workers require different set of skills. This article discuss about skill development among the officer (community workers) of Ikhtiar Malaysia. It is conducted by asking participants in the Ikhtiar Fishermen Loan Scheme. This study attempts to answer three questions, namely: to identify community work skills; the relationship skills of community work with poverty eradication and the relationship between community work skills and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation by using inductive research strategy. This study used questionnaires set, containing 78 items which designed by the researchers to measure the eight variables, namely: the skills to create a network system, and discuss listening skills, handling skills of the participants, work management skills, skills to provide resources, communication skills, problem solving and leadership skills. The study shows that community workers have skills in listening and discussing aspects, operate and manage the work of participants, but less skilled in other aspects. For correlation analysis, the skill to create a network system, listening and talking, work management skills, skills to provide resources, communication skills and problem solving skills correlate strongly with the effectiveness of poverty alleviation and skills of the participants and the leadership skills to handle moderately correlated. Meanwhile, work management skills of the most powerful influence on the success of poverty eradication.