Don't be mistaken ... I am not into social work, as you would expect. It is just a course requirement, which opened a small window for me into the lives of the socially trampled and marginalised. Please be assured, again, that the biased tone of the above statement hardly signals the arrival of a new crusader-against-poverty on the block, but its just that it is the truth.
Our society has, over a period of time, defined and redefined the 'poor'. Poor sounded hackneyed ... so we decided to call them 'needy'. But needy had a self-defeating connotation to it. How can anybody with an iota of self-respect be called needy? So, he became 'deprived'. And then 'underpriviledged'. When underpriviledged was overused, he became 'disadvantaged'.
He may not have a single dime even today... but he has a great vocabulary.
I have no take-aways from this course. The window that I had talked about had a collapsible hinge. It is shut now. The salt pans are a fading memory.
But the assortment of emotions ... pride ... self-belief ... gratefulness ... the feeling of being recognised ... and a ray of hope that the video writ large on the face of a salt pan worker ... I would like to carry that along with me.
[Influenced by and drawn from Feiffer, Jules' quote]
Our society has, over a period of time, defined and redefined the 'poor'. Poor sounded hackneyed ... so we decided to call them 'needy'. But needy had a self-defeating connotation to it. How can anybody with an iota of self-respect be called needy? So, he became 'deprived'. And then 'underpriviledged'. When underpriviledged was overused, he became 'disadvantaged'.
He may not have a single dime even today... but he has a great vocabulary.
I have no take-aways from this course. The window that I had talked about had a collapsible hinge. It is shut now. The salt pans are a fading memory.
But the assortment of emotions ... pride ... self-belief ... gratefulness ... the feeling of being recognised ... and a ray of hope that the video writ large on the face of a salt pan worker ... I would like to carry that along with me.
[Influenced by and drawn from Feiffer, Jules' quote]
Good video ... excellent voiceover, especially at the start :P
ReplyDeleteThis course did just one thing - open our eyes to some of the most obvious things. The issues we saw are all around us. As the prof said, there are no expectations from this course. It is just meant to raise awareness.
ReplyDeleteps: :D Nice voiceover.