About 6 beautiful years ago I was searching for the perfect career. I knew I wanted one the dealt with people in the most direct way possible. I wasn’t driven by how much I would make, but by how much impact my work would have on another human. So well eventually, I settled for social work. Guesswhat?; Been at it for some months now and am still& thinking!results!impact!change!sustainability!;et cetera. Not to overplay my righteous card but money still isn’t winning.
By and large,I feel social workers, particularly those practicing in Africa fight one multifaceted demon called poverty. it offsprings often tend to be corruption, disease, illiteracy among others.
Let me dwell a little more on this poverty in this post. It is understood as the lack of access to basic needs such as food, water, education, healthcare to mention but a few. But over time and with deep reflection I am starting to see that poverty; has matured into a mindset.The mindset that those who have must strive to amass more than enough for themselves even if it is at the expense of those without . That rather than aiming to have, the have nots must criticize those who have for simply having. Driven by greed and jealousy people play vulnerable in order for them to keep begging and unfortunately or fortunately they keep receiving and dependency is perpetuated further.
They believe more in asking and receivingrather than workinghad to create something of their own. Rather than to take radical steps to challenge and change the status quo, they would much rather leave it as it is as fearing they may lose some of the benefits it comes with.
This dear reader, is a thinking of poeple who have let poverty move out of the POCKET and into the MIND.It saddens me even as I write. That many people have embraced poverty and see it as a state worth maintaining in order to get by.
Poverty must leave the mind and return to the pocket if it is to ever be addressed effectively.
For as long as poverty remains in the mind, development workers need to step aside and give way to more aid workers who bring relief food and the much sort after donations.
Just a few thoughts from the mind of a social worker
Signing off
TN
