I strongly believe and strictly follow the tag line of a social worker that states, ‘Help a person to help themselves’. Sometimes it becomes too difficult to understand the exact meaning of this phrase and many a times a social worker may cross a line and get too emotionally attached to a person that he/she is working with and the true essence of this phrase is lost. Often when we work in a non-profit organization, we sympathise with a person rather than empathising with him/her. And in a moment of utter crisis or during a period of strife, our emotions tend to prevail and we make decisions with our heart, rather than with our head. Its good to be like that at times, but we also need to come to terms with the realities of the world.
During the past few months that I have worked with Oasis India, I have witnessed that many a times, a lot of my well experienced colleagues who had been working in this arena of social work get too emotionally attached to the individuals we work with. During a crisis in this person’s life, they tend to forget to think about ‘helping the person to help themselves’. It becomes too evident in our work that we are not making individuals independent, rather we are making them dependent on us and on the organization we refer them to. I have also witnessed that this individual is thereby not able to make a right choice for his/her life due to this increased dependency. Sometimes, it becomes too obvious that we are trying to control this individual’s life and we become the head of their lives, which shouldn’t be the case.
For many, the above paragraphs would establish that I am unemotional, but if you look at the context of these paragraphs, you would understand that that is not the case. Sometimes being emotional for a cause that you supports comes from being a little unemotional.
Ferin Susan Raj
Ferin has been with Oasis for ten months. She loves dancing to the tune of Munni Badnam Hui and is looking for a possible partner to join her at it.
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