8/7/2019 What is Social Work by Imran Ahmad Sajid

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A BRIEF MENTAL EXERCISE AND

DIALOG ON SOCIAL WORK

By: Imran Ahmad Sajid

Tuesday March 1, 2011

1. Mental Exercise on Social Work

It was a moonlit night. The wind was blowing nicely. The leaves andbranches of the trees were making sweet noise. I was sitting on the roof top of my house reading my Social Work book. Suddenly I saw a light spotcoming down from the sky. The light spot was moving straight towards meand it was getting brighter and brighter. Then about 20 meters above myhead, it stopped moving further down. It was a spaceship. Suddenly, thedoor opened and an odd creature came down from the spaceship. Itlanded near me and said, “Hi, I am Zelda from planet Neptune.”, “Hi”, Isaid panicly, “what are you doing here on earth?” “I came on earth toenquire about something”, said Zelda. I asked, “what is it Mr. Zelda?”Zelda said, “Well, I know nothing about planet earth and the creaturesliving on this planet. However, I heard that there is something on thisplanet which is called SOCIAL WORK. What is it? What is social work?”

2. What is Social Work

I said, “Well, Zelda, social work is not any physical object. You can nottouch it. You can only perceive it.”

“Will you mind making it easy for me Mr. Imran”, said Zelda.

“What will you do when you know it?” I said.

“I am just curious about it.” Said Zelda.

“Ok then, listen carefully. The people on this planet are social being andthey are gregarious. I mean that they are by nature made to live in agroup life. They live together. When the people of this planet live together,they have different kinds of relationships with each others. Sometimes,there is very close relationship between two or more people which youmay call primary relationship. While other times, the relationship is notthat much close call it secondary. And yes, sometimes, there isantagonistic relationship between people.

Then, what happens, there comes a difficult time in the lives of the peoplewho are in close relationship with each other. There comes some sort of imbalance in their relationship. One of the persons may become sick,

mentally or physically, and the other is affected by his/her sickness. Andsometimes, they want to live together but some sort of ambiguities and

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lack of communication and other factors make the relationships strain.When this happens, the normal routine of the people, individually or ingroup, is disturbed.”

At this point, Mr. Zelda from planet Neptune interpreted my speech and

asked, “Does this mean that this is their normal close relationships whichmake the people of this planet to work in a normal routine?”

“Well, it seems a YES to me”, I said.

3. What do Social Workers Do?

So, when this normal routine is disturbed due to imbalance in therelationships of people, they try to solve it. First, the people sort out theirown solutions and this goes automatically. When the people fail to findthe solution themselves, then there are people on this planet who are

called SOCIAL WORKERS who solve this problem of relationships amongpeople both close relationships and secondary as well. So, this is calledSOCIAL WORK on this planet solving the problems of humanrelationships. Keep it in mind Zelda that these relationships are not justlimited to people individually, but collectively as well.”

4. How Social Workers Work?

Again, Mr. Zelda asked, “how do these SOCIAL WORKERS solve thoserelationship problems?”

I replied to Zelda, “Aah, they probably have much better understanding of how our relationships (close and secondary) work and they have some sortof techniques to probe into our problems and sort out there solutions.”They may ask the questions from each person / party individually or mayask both the persons / parties to sit together and talk to him. “

“Oh, these Social Workers must be good guys then? Said Zelda. They aredoing amazing things. These human beings interest me more now. Now Iam going back to planet Neptune. I will come again and ask you moreabout people of this planet. Thanks for your information Imran.”

“You are welcome”, I replied. With this a light tube appeared from thespaceship and Zelda flew in the air towards the spaceship. And withinseconds, the spaceship disappeared in the sky.

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Imran Ahmad Sajid is a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the University of Peshawar. Hecan be reached at imranahmad131@gmail.com