Why giving back to our society is important?
Human beings are social and community-driven, who require constant acceptance and recognition from others. However, this becomes a secondary concern when we realize that a major chunk of the world population is in extreme poverty and do not have access to the basic needs. This scenario is basically a psychological phenomenon by which humans tend to satisfy their innate desires. These desires were defined and categorized by Abraham Harold Maslow in his publication titled ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.’ According to Maslow, humans have two kinds of needs: the deficiency needs and the growth needs. Deficiency needs are the basic needs which are important for the basic survival and growth needs are required for progressing successfully in life. Physiological and safety needs fall under the deficiency needs and rest of the three falls under the growth needs.
Unfortunately, even in this 21st century, many people in our world do not have proper access to the resources to satisfy their deficiency or the basic needs. As of today, about 8.3% of the total world population is in extreme poverty. (Source: https://worldpoverty.io/) Thus, even though there are many NGOs working towards it and there are multiple governments focusing on eradication of poverty, it is proving less effective. This, in turn, is leading to an increase in the population below the poverty line and thus the whole community’s health goes down.
So, how do we decrease the number of people below the poverty line? We should aim at giving active support to this population to achieve the first two stages of needs i.e. Physiological Needs and Safety Needs and aim at providing passive support to them to the achieve Social and esteem needs. Currently, most of us are focusing only on active support and not on passive support, because we fail to realize that passive support also helps is the growth of the community.
Active Support:
Active support involves identifying the people who need support for getting accessibility to fulfill their basic needs. This can be done in various ways:
1. Educate and train the population for developing skills
2. Provide the basic needs such as home, access to restrooms etc.
3. Train the population for self-defense
4. Provide health care and arrange for employment
5. Access to clean water and food
Passive Support:
This is a bit tricky because it’s difficult to identify and provide support. While providing the basic needs is important, it is also important to make this set of the population feel loved and bring a sense of belongingness in them. This also entails respecting this population and looking at them with the same eyes as we look at the population above the poverty line. Only then will this set of the population get the confidence to grow in the community and help the community grow in turn.
1. Respect and motivate them
2. Love and care about them
3. Treat them as equals
4. Recognize them for their work
5. Provide them with opportunities and mentor them
Both active and passive supports go a long way in growing the human community in a much mature and developed manner. More the awareness is spread among us about ‘community-driven growth’, better will be our chances to actually grow and reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. As explained above, humans are community driven and since everyone has the right to access all the basic resources for their needs, we have a moral duty to serve to the people who are in need. Even though there are no strict rules for community service, an own initiative by us will make our environment in which we live, beautiful!
If you are unable to make yourself available to support these organizations that aim at curbing poverty, I urge you to at least support them monetarily. A lot of effort goes in improving the lifestyle of the underprivileged and if we work together, we can make a difference!
