8/7/2019 What is Social Work by Imran Ahmad Sajid (March 2011)

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A BRIEF MENTAL EXERCISE AND

DIALOG ON SOCIAL WORK 

1. Mental Exercise on Social Work 

It was a moonlit night. The wind was blowing nicely. The leaves and

branches 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 spot

coming down from the sky. The light spot was moving straight towards me

and it was getting brighter and brighter. Then about 20 meters above my

head, it stopped moving further down. It was a spaceship. Suddenly, the

door opened and an odd creature came down from the spaceship. Itlanded near me and said, “Hi, I am Zelda from planet Neptune.”, “Hi”, I

said panicly, “what are you doing here on earth?”  “I came on earth to

enquire about something”, said Zelda.  I asked, “what is it Mr. Zelda?”

Zelda said, “Well, I know nothing about planet earth and the creatures

living on this planet. However, I heard that there is something on this

planet 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 not

touch 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 and

they are gregarious. I mean that they are by nature made to live in a

group 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 you

may call primary relationship. While other times, the relationship is not

that  much  closecall  it  secondary.  And  yes,  sometimes,  there  is

antagonistic relationship between people.

Then, what happens, there comes a difficult time in the lives of the people

who 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. And

sometimes, they want to live together but some sort of ambiguities and

lack of communication and other factors make the relationships strain.

8/7/2019 What is Social Work by Imran Ahmad Sajid (March 2011)

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When this happens, the normal routine of the people, individually or in

group, 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 which

make 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 the

relationships of people, they try to solve it. First, the people sort out their

own solutionsand this goes automatically. When the people fail to find

the solution themselves, then there are people on this planet who are

called SOCIAL WORKERS who solve this problem of relationships among

peopleboth close relationships and secondary as well. So, this is calledSOCIAL   WORK   on   this   planetsolving   the   problems   of   human

relationships. Keep it in mind Zelda that these relationships are not just

limited to people individually, but collectively as well.”

4. How Social Workers Work?

Again, Mr. Zelda asked, “how do these SOCIAL WORKERS solve those

relationship 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 may

ask both the persons / parties to sit together and talk to him. “

“Oh, these Social Workers must be good guys then? Said Zelda. They are

doing amazing things. These human beings interest me more now. Now I

am going back to planet Neptune. I will come again and ask you more

about people of this planet. Thanks for your information Imran.”

“You are welcome”, I replied. With this a light tube appeared from the

spaceship and Zelda flew in the air towards the spaceship. And within

seconds, the spaceship disappeared in the sky.