My Life as a Social Worker
Yesterday was a memorable day for me as I was ushered with the honorary title Deshamanya, the second-highest Sri Lankan national honor awarded by the Government of Sri Lanka “for highly meritorious service”. But the main motivation of writing this article is not to celebrate or brag about the title but rather to share my experiences of being a social worker and some of the revelations I had gained through the years of experiences.
Since I was a child I was extremely passionate about helping the less deserving. I used to arrange many social projects with my little savings but mostly these activities were done hidden from the public for a reason I still don’t know — not even my parents knew about any.
The smiles in those faces of the less deserving continued to give me immense pleasure and joy. I always felt that I was capable of touching more lives but I didn’t know how to do with my little savings. But as I started to age, this passion or drive to seek for pleasure through giving slowly turned towards a huge responsibility.
I feel by having the following four elements present will yield you to be highly productive, effective and persistence in your role as a social worker thus truly enabling you to make an impact to the world you are living:
Involve and network with other like-mined individuals
It happened this year where I was fortunate to meet a bunch of highly grounded, yet highly energetic group of locals who had access to the poorest pockets in Sri Lanka. With the support and guidance from them, I managed to elevate my social work a notch higher.
I continued to visit these highly remote places and to support these communities — now not alone but with the financial assistance, I received of my dearest network both residing locally and overseas. With each visit, I started to get a clear sense of the hardships that these communities were undergoing.
Consider social work as a duty rather than a pleasure
Through the work I carried out this year a deep revelation stuck me, as I slowly began to integrate with these communities, that we were not born on equal standards be it wealth, health, intellectual capacity, etc. It’s like you and I try to race each other but I get an early start hence obviously I would enjoy a better chance of making it first to the finish line. But the real question is what have I done to claim this advantage over you and what have you done to start behind me? Was it really nice to enjoy this success all by myself and/or with my close family circle? With all these deep thoughts pondering in my head, I finally gained a sense of vision that it should no longer be a pleasure or a joy in giving to the real needy but rather a duty and responsibility to push and assist whoever who started this so-called race of life behind us.
Share your work with the rest of the world
I started writing about each of these projects in my portfolio site — more as an eye-opener rather than a motivation or an inspiration — especially for those who are still enjoying the advantages of having a blessed life but still ignorant or blind to see who is crawling behind them.
I have stumbled upon great personalities who I would have never met nor they would have lost the chance to be part of a bigger cause if I never shared my social project stories.
Accept the challenges but humbly rejoice the rewards you gain
Yet highly rewarding, If you truly want to carry your duty to the core, accept that the Journey would not be a walk in the park as being a social worker requires a lot of emotional as well as physical labor.
I also strongly feel in the following argument: It was not you who decided where you started the race, and hence it will also not be you who will decide where you will finish in this race. Hence we are truly vulnerable beings but we still have a choice that we can make today on how we are going to run this race of life which I feel is still within our control. Use it wisely as we never know what tomorrow will bring to us.
