Be the Change you Want to See

We are free to do whatever we want. But every action comes with some consequences. Why not turn the consequences in our favour? We are not given this human life to create chaos all around but an opportunity to sustain it. After all, humans are Social Animals, it’s our responsibility.

What are social responsibilities?

Social responsibility is a moral commitment of an individual or group to take decisions or actions that are in favour and useful to society.

What does it mean to be socially responsible?

This whole idea revolves around the basic understanding that our decisions and actions must be positively constructive and in favour of society. If any of our actions cause harm or results in the downfall of society, then it would be considered irresponsible.

We all are inherited with moral values that help us to create a distinction between right and wrong. It’s the duty of every individual to act accordingly not any particular individual.

The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.

What can our ignorance result into?

We have come so far to this day and managed to civilize ourselves but our ignorance can lead to downfall. The financial gap will increase at an astronomical rate. If we ignore our duties towards the environment then we are creating our own personal hell. Illiteracy will eat up all our breakthroughs, etc, etc….

What drives us to be socially responsible and bring about change?

It can be anything ranging from the immense pleasure you get by doing anything good or when you become furious to see anything wrong around or your heart melts when you see the smile on the face of the little girl selling flowers at a traffic signal and someone buys flowers from her, any other deep feeling and experience.

If you haven’t experienced any of the above-mentioned feelings then you can do one thing. You probably know the area where there are living people full of hardships, there must be kids too, who are struggling between their childhood and the peer pressure of satiating the hunger by the night. Take some food for them and see how their faces paled with hunger turns into joyful faces with rising hope in humanity. This is enough to make you realize your position in society and your responsibility towards it.

There are many pure souls on earth who understood their social responsibility and became the change maker. One among them is Savithri Bai Phule whose name has been etched in her hearts. She is the revolutionary feminist icon of our country. Her life was not easy enough to become the first female teacher of the country. She at a very young age was married to young Jyotiba Phule. Belonging from a backward caste she did not get any primary education. She was taught by her husband at their home. Later she took a training’s training course at an institute run by an American missionary in Ahmednagar. This revolutionary feminist was deeply touched by the condition of women education in society especially in backward castes. She could somehow escape this trap and now she finds it to be her responsibility to help her others too. No one forced her, she took it all upon herself. Later, she with her husband opened several schools which were flooded by the girls. At that time there was more number of girls in the schools opened by them than the number of boys in the government schools.

Do you think this was a very easy task for her? NO, not at all. Being a woman and that also from a backward caste was not an easy task at that time. People were full of criticism and used to throw stones at her on the way to school. She could have left all these and settled somewhere else with her husband and earn bread for living, after all, she was highly educated. But no, she never let it come in her way and considered it as her duty to educate girls.

Savithri bai says — “I am doing a sacred task of teaching my young sisters and the stone pelted at me are like flowers.”

Savithri bai successfully understood her responsibility and fulfilled it at any cost. She became the change she wanted to see in the world.

Now it is our turn!

Written by Connecting Dreams Foundation member Kabeer