Today, March 15, is World Social Work Day. The theme of the day is “co-building a new social world: Leaving no one behind.” It is undoubtedly marked by a great philanthropic call to establish a well-balanced global society where nobody will be left behind. Everybody, irrespective of caste and creed, will be treated equally and given his/her rightul share.
Organized by the International Federation of Social Workers ( IFSW), different UN organizations such as UNICEF and ECOSOC have given consultative status to IFSW and since 1983, this organization has been celebrating the day globally on every third Tuesday of March, with the goal to enhance international cooperation along with celebrating the accomplishments and contributions of social workers all over the world.
In many countries, there are national associations of private social workers. IFSW is an international platform for the social workers for all the countries of the day, who want to encourage social workers all over the world to improve their technical knowledge and capabilities to come to the aid of the people who are actually in need, be it mental or material support.
Many people confuse the idea of social work with that of social science. Social work is designed, with a voluntary objective, for the prevention or for alleviation of suffering of a group of people. Sometimes, social workers appear to serve as the conscience of the society; they deal with misguided juveniles, advise them, follow them, maintain case-work for each of them, and finally try to bring them back to the correct path of life.
The basis of social work is mostly teachings of religion, as all major religions put an emphasis on voluntary benevolent work such as to give food to one who is hungry, to assist one who is suffering, to rescue the person who is in danger, etc. In almost every society, many people suffer from mental illnesses, emotional dysfunctions, or moral turpitude which create serious problems for them and affect their interpersonal relationship with others.
Trained social workers can help them by using different means and ways. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology says that social works are expected to deal with a wide range of problems -- those which diminish the “quality of inner life.” Brian Sheldon and Geraldic Macdonald said that social work’s disciplinary territory is the poor, troubled, abused, neglected, frail, elderly, and the mentally ill.
Again, there remains confusion in using social work and social welfare synonymously since there exist conceptual and practical differences between the two. According to Friedlander, “an organized system of social services aimed at addressing the assistance of a large group of people, normally and naturally undertaken, in the present day context, by the welfare state” can better be defined and marked as social welfare.
Our safety net programs, VGD, VGF, and allowances to pregnant mothers, housing facilities to the poor, relief operations during natural calamities, distribution of food at retailed rate among the marginalized people, and also the vast vaccination program for the population are examples of social welfare activities in Bangladesh.
Social workers’ role in advising, guiding, and eventually managing case work from person to person is very important in every community. A trained, skilled, and dedicated social worker is like a guiding star in every community -- he serves as the reagent and catalyst. He keeps an eye around him, observes everybody, and if something wrong is found in the outward behaviour of anyone anywhere in the community, he immediately intervenes there.
The government cannot alone do everything by itself. The people in a community are to have a sense of belongingness. A boy or a girl is not only the child of a particular family, he or she is also the child of the community in which he/she is born and lives. Therefore, if a child gets negatively influenced, he creates hazards and threats not only to his family but to the community as well. Here is the necessity of the social worker.
Though Bangladesh is small in size, it is undoubtedly big in population in comparison to its area. More than 30% of the population consists of young people. But unfortunately, social work, in the true sense of the term, is scarcely found in our country, even though the social work education started from the early fifties at the tertiary level.
In this connection, a comment of Tulsi Kumar Das might be mentioned here as he says that the contribution of social workers and academicians are not much. I am referring to him not to demean anybody’s contribution but to make an appeal to everybody to come forward with a broader sense of belongingness to the community, to be a social worker and make contribution from one’s own position.
If every one of us actually performs our own duties with due dedication and commitment, we can automatically become social workers. Let us start anew to become social workers. Here in this world especially, everyone richer or stronger has some duties towards the poor and the weaker.
As Cecil Frances Alexander said:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate
God made them high or lowly,
And ordered their estate
Sheikh Rafiqul Islam is Director General (Grade-1), Department Of Social Services.