<![CDATA[Educational assistance programs play an important role in ensuring educational access for children from low-income families. However, the long-term sustainability of such programs requires economic empowerment strategies that enable beneficiary families to achieve self-reliance. This community service project aimed to develop an Economic Self-Reliance Readiness Assessment instrument and formulate an economic self-reliance roadmap for parents of educational assistance recipients within a church-based community in Surabaya. The project employed a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach involving observation, interviews, focus group discussions, assessment instrument development, family economic condition analysis, and participatory roadmap formulation. The assessment instrument was designed based on seven key dimensions: family stability, financial management, motivation for program participation, psychological readiness, business potential, social support, and commitment to the program. The results indicate that the developed instrument effectively mapped families’ readiness levels toward economic self-reliance and served as the foundation for a three-year roadmap consisting of three phases: basic capacity strengthening, productive business incubation, and transition toward economic independence. The roadmap provides a strategic framework for program managers to design more targeted, measurable, and sustainable empowerment initiatives. Ultimately, the program is expected to support not only children's educational continuity but also the gradual transformation of beneficiary families into economically independent and productive households.]]>
