Social Work

Social work is a profession for those with a strong desire to help improve people's lives. Social workers help people function the best way they can in their environment, deal with their relationships, and solve personal and family problems. Social workers often see clients who face a life-threatening disease or a social problem, such as inadequate housing, unemployment, a serious illness, a disability, or substance abuse. Social workers also assist families that have serious domestic conflicts, sometimes involving child or spousal abuse.

Social workers often provide social services in health-related settings that now are governed by managed care organizations. To contain costs, these organizations emphasize short-term intervention, ambulatory and community-based care, and greater decentralization of services.

Most social workers specialize. Although some conduct research or are involved in planning or policy development, most social workers prefer an area of practice in which they interact with clients.

Child, family, and school social workers provide social services and assistance to improve the social and psychological functioning of children and their families and to maximize the family well-being and academic functioning of children. Some social workers assist single parents, arrange adoptions, or help find foster homes for neglected, abandoned, or abused children. In schools, they address such problems as teenage pregnancy, misbehavior, and truancy and advise teachers on how to cope with problem students. Increasingly, school social workers are teaching workshops to an entire class. Some social workers specialize in services for senior citizens, running support groups for family caregivers or for the adult children of aging parents, advising elderly people or family members about choices in areas such as housing, transportation, and long-term care, and coordinating and monitoring these services. Through employee assistance programs, they may help workers cope with job-related pressures or with personal problems that affect the quality of their work. Child, family, and school social workers typically work for individual and family services agencies, schools, or State or local governments. These social workers may be known as child welfare social workers, family services social workers, child protective services social workers, occupational social workers, or gerontology social workers.

Medical and public health social workers provide persons, families, or vulnerable populations with the psychosocial support needed to cope with chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses, such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, or AIDS. They also advise family caregivers, counsel patients, and help plan for patients' needs after discharge by arranging for at-home services, from meals-on-wheels to oxygen equipment. Some work on interdisciplinary teams that evaluate certain kinds of patients-geriatric or organ transplant patients, for example. Medical and public health social workers may work for hospitals, nursing and personal care facilities, individual and family services agencies, or local governments.

Mental health and substance abuse social workers assess and treat individuals with mental illness or substance abuse problems, including abuse of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs. Such services include individual and group therapy, outreach, crisis intervention, social rehabilitation, and training in skills of everyday living. They also may help plan for supportive services to ease patients' return to the community. Mental health and substance abuse social workers are likely to work in hospitals, substance abuse treatment centers, individual and family services agencies, or local governments. These social workers may be known as clinical social workers. (Counselors and psychologists, who may provide similar services, are discussed elsewhere.)

Other types of social workers include social work planners and policymakers, who develop programs to address such issues as child abuse, homelessness, substance abuse, poverty, and violence. These workers research and analyze policies, programs, and regulations. They identify social problems and suggest legislative and other solutions. They may help raise funds or write grants to support these programs.

Source: http://www.collegegrad.com/careers/proft41.shtml#nat

From a child born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Baba Amte later transformed his life into a social activist. He devoted his entire life to serve the downtrodden people of the society. He left his lucrative profession to join India's struggle for independence. Baba Amte formed Anandvan (Forest of Joy), to serve the people struck by leprosy. He received many awards including the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Muralidhar Devdas Amte, popularly known as Baba Amte, was born on 26 December, 1914 in Hinganghat, Wardha district in Maharashtra. He was the eldest son of his parents. His father was a wealthy Brahmin landowner of Wardha district, who owned over 450 acres of good cultivable land. The name 'Baba' was affectionately given by his parents. At a very young age, Baba Amte owned a gun and used to hunt wild boar and deer. Later, he went on to own an expensive sports car, cushioned with panther skin.

He studied Law and started a lucrative practice in Wardha, but was moved by distressed condition of the poor and downtrodden classes of society. Then he relinquished his ceremonial dress and started working with the rag-pickers and sweepers for sometime in Chandrapura district. Later, he resumed practicing but as a "defence lawyer" for the leaders imprisoned in the 1942 Quit India movement.

Amte, like Vinoba Bhave was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Amte was a constant follower of Gandhiji and practiced various aspects of Gandhism for his entire life.

In 1946, Baba Amte married Sadhana Guleshastri. She was also a believer of humanity and always supported Baba Amte in his social works. She was popularly known as Sadhnatai. 'Tai' in Marathi language means "elder sister". After pursuing a leprosy orientation course at the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, Baba Amte set up 11 weekly clinics and started working for those struck by leprosy. Later in 1951, Baba Amte was given 250 acres of land by the state government on which Amte founded the Anandvan ashram. Inside the ashram premises, two hospitals, a university, an orphanage and a school for the blind were opened.

In 1990, Baba Amte left Anandvan to join Medha Patkar's Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement). While leaving Anandvan Baba said, "I am leaving to live along the Narmada... Narmada will linger on the lips of the nation as a symbol of all struggles against social injustice." In place of the dams, the Narmada Bachao Andolan demanded for an energy and water strategy based on improving dry farming technology, watershed development, small dams, lift schemes for irrigation and drinking water, and improved efficiency and utilization of existing dams.

Baba wanted the youth to enlighten themselves with knowledge so that they can understand the meaning and importance of India's freedom. Baba had once said, "We must try to understand this power contained in the roots of trees. Only when you will understand this phenomenon, will you find the courage to embrace adventure and perform what needs to be done. Those who want to bring about creative revolution must fully understand this root phenomenon."

The work of Baba Amte, was unanimously praised by many national and international organizations. He was awarded with the United Nations Human Rights Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay award (1985), the Templeton Prize(1990), the Gandhi Peace Prize, and many other humanitarian and environmental prizes. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often considered as the "Nobel Prize of Asia".The work of Baba Amte, was unanimously praised by many national and international organizations. He was awarded with the United Nations Human Rights Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay award (1985), the Templeton Prize(1990), the Gandhi Peace Prize, and many other humanitarian and environmental prizes. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often considered as the "Nobel Prize of Asia".

In 2007, Baba Amte was diagnosed with leukemia. After suffering for more than a year, Amte left his mortal body on 9 February, 2008 at Anandvan. Many renowned faces from across the world expressed condolences at the death of the great soul. Unlike Hindu rituals, the body of Baba Amte was buried not cremated.

homology, a correspondence between two or more structures. The Marxist critic Lucien Goldmann developed a theory of the relations between literary works and social classes in terms of homologies. In his Le Dieu Caché (1959), he observed a homology between the underlying structure of Racine's tragedies and that of the world‐view held by a particular group in the French nobility. This method was extended to the modern novel in Goldmann's Pour une sociologie du roman (1964). An example of something that bears a resemblance to something else is called a homologue, and is said to be homologous with it.

Read more: homology

With Gandhi's advent on the Indian scene in 1915, things began to change all round. Gandhi looked at social welfare in his own unique way. His ways, indeed, were unique, so much so that even as early as 1894 i.e. when he was just 25 years old, he wanted to help his compatriots in South Africa by saving them from blatant and crushing racial discrimination. This shows Gandhi's consideration of his fellow men even at that young age. Gandhi never equated happiness with economic prosperity and physical pleasure alone. His concept of the welfare of society was totally opposed to the utilitarian concept, viz. the greatest good of the greatest number. Gandhi said, "A votary of Ahimsa would strive for the greatest good ofall and die in the attempt to realise this ideal. He would be willing to die so that others might live. He would serve the rest by dying himself. The greatest good of all, inevitably included the good of the greatest number, and, therefore, he and the utilitarian would converge on many points. But ultimately they would have to part company and even work in opposite directions. The utilitarian to be logical will never sacrifice himself. The absolutist will even sacrifice himself'. It is Gandhi's deep-rooted conviction that individual happiness lies in the happiness of society and vice-versa; and this is constantly seen in almost all his pronouncements regarding social welfare. He considered man superior to the system he propounded, and so he was against the system which brought about moral degradation of Indian society. Gandhi never drew a sharp distinction between economics and ethics. For him, economic policies which were harmful to the moral well-being of an individual, community, society, country or a nation were immoral and therefore, sinful. For him happiness meant the happiness of the society as a whole and was indicated primarily, by its moral standard and secondarily, by its physical and economic well-being.

'Sarvodaya' the greatest good of all through truth and non-violence became the ultimate goal of Gandhi in social welfare. His methods of working towards this goal were different from those of many other leaders and social reformers. He took an integrated view of life and disapproved of dividing an individual's life into different compartments. Also the individual was looked upon by him not as a separate entity but as a constituent unit of society.

On his return from South Africa, he perceived after a year of extensive travel all over India, that if his mother-land wanted to get out of the grinding poverty, political freedom was the foremost requirement. This could come only through the awakening of society. His ideas of social reconstruction had already started forming in the last few years of his stay in South Africa. He believed firmly that the individual and the society were contributory to each other's happiness.

Truth & Non-violence

To Gandhi, nothing was more sacred than truth and non- violence. Originally he believed that God is Truth. Later he changed this a little and maintained that Truth is God. "Generally speaking", Gandhi said, "observation of the law of truth is understood merely to mean that we must speak the truth but we ...should understand the word 'satya' or truth in a much wider sense. There should be truth in thought, truth in speech and truth in action".

For seeking as well as for finding truth, Ahimsa - non-violence - love for all beings - was a necessity. Although Ahimsa - non-violence - is a negative word, Gandhi certainly did not consider it as a negative force. His concept of Ahimsa is not confined to human beings but includes the entire creation. He says, "In spite of the negative particle 'non', it is no negative force. Superficially we are surrounded in life by strife and blood- shed, life living upon life. But some seer, who ages ago penetrated the centre of truth, said, 'It is not through strife and violence that man can fulfill his destiny and his duty to his fellow creatures'. It is a force which is more positive than electricity and more powerful than even ether". It is essential to under- stand the implications of non-violence as Gandhi understood them as it was the creed to which he rendered life-long service.

1. Non-violence is the law of human race and is infinitely greater than and superior to brute force.

2. In the last resort it is of no avail to those who do not posses a living faith in the God of love.

3. Non-violence affords the fullest protection to one's self-respect and sense of honour, but not always to possession of land or money, though its habitual practice does prove a better bulwark than the possession of armed men to defend them.

4. Non-violence is a power which can be wielded equally by all - children, young men and women or grown-up people, provided they have a living faith in the God of love and have therefore equal love for all mankind...

5. It is a profound error to suppose that whilst the law is good enough for individuals, it is not for the masses of mankind.