Professional Skills Development For Job Responsibilities

Overview of the Organization

Discuss about the Professional Skills Development for Job Responsibilities.
 

I got a job as a volunteer and charity worker at Let’s Go-On foundation. Lets Go-on Foundation is a charity based organization headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Its primary motto is ‘Let’s build our nation’. Their primary goal is to unite together and give support to needy people in terms of educational support and monetary support by means of donation. This venture is supported by Bangladesh Youth Club. It is a non-profit organization that seeks to help people by getting volunteers involved in charity works, and its main objective is to sponsor children in education in Bangladesh.

As a volunteer and charity worker at Let’s Go-On Foundation, I had several administrative functions. I had to internal/external emails, receive calls and resolve queries of clients and redirect calls to appropriate person in the organization. I was also required to process a donation, welfare payment, cash, in-voices and support other volunteers in the use of office equipment. I also had the responsibility to give administrative support for volunteer recruitment and provide adequate training to them. I maintained client records and stored specific information about clients by undertaking filing, faxing and photocopying whenever it was necessary (Kadushin and Harkness 2014).

While undertaking my job responsibilities as a volunteer in Let’s Go-On Foundation, I came to know a lot about social injustice prevalent in the society. I found inter-social issues in the community in the form of racism, sexism, and ageism. This occurs because of violation of economic, political and civil rights of the specific group in society due to the perception of inferiority for these people by other sections and by discriminatory government policies (Adams and Bell 2016). This ultimately had an impact on the economic and social life of individuals. I realized that unequal distribution of wealth and resources is the biggest problem that has affected people a lot. Some are living in acute poverty while some are enjoying all amenities of life. When people suffer from poverty, it has an impact on many aspects of their lives. Poor economic condition means the poor condition of livelihood which ultimately has an impact on health and employment. These are personal suffering but many times people are in trouble due to the inefficacy of government. This I found during my job when I saw people not getting the basic facility in access to education and health care. My job also enlightened me with structural dimensions of poverty, and I feel that major defect lies in the system of ownership and management of resources. During my volunteering work, I identified that different individual had a different meaning for injustice. For a child living in urban slums, it meant not getting access to education, poor teachers in the classroom and not getting a proper meal. Unemployed youth regards decreased the chance of getting a job as social injustice, while a woman regards increases risk of sexual abuse as injustice (Sue et al. 2015).

Overview of the Placement Role

After seeing the existence of a diverse form of social injustice existing in the society, I feel that now every individual has the responsibility to take actions. The services given by organization made me realize that if the government is not taking adequate steps, then a certain group of people has to take the responsibility of supporting inferior section of society. It will ultimately benefit us in the future because when people get basic civil and economic rights, society prospers and many problems of society get eliminated. If all volunteers work with this concept in mind, then they can definitely contribute in reforming the society. During my job as a volunteer, I saw many other volunteers trying to reach people in distresses and supporting them. I felt very empowered that my effort was mean to improving lives of many people. If all people understand this individual responsibility to the society, then it will strengthen the community as a whole. Individual responsibility helps in promoting social injustice and mitigating problems of society. In my organization, I saw people sponsoring children in education and promoting basic literacy among the society. If many more people get involved in social work, major sufferings of people will definitely reduce (Reamer 2013).

My job as a volunteer in Let’s Go On Foundation enhanced my skills in many ways. It gave me the opportunity to grow and learn professionalism and ethical aspects in social work. As a professional, I learned to coordinate multiple activities related to social work. I efficiently learned to listen to problems of clients, answer their queries, provide them a donation and cash in time and at the same time I handled new volunteers and trained them how to go about in social service. I could manage activities to enable access to a basic resource of people (Baldwin 2016). This job taught me about ethical responsibility as social work professional. I learned that a social worker should always respect the interest and privacy of clients. The moral standard is not just limited to the customer; I had to ensure that I fairly treat the other entire colleague in my organization and also adhered to the values, ethics, and commitments made to my organization (Levy and Slavin 2013). The job helped me to develop spiritually and personally when I realized that my efforts were for the betterment of society. It gave me a lot of contentment and peace when I saw people appreciating our effort and acknowledging that their lives change due to our help. I was committed to the welfare of the society, and it realized my individual responsibility towards the welfare of the community. I felt proud when I could plan helping activity to give assistance to deprived people and helped them to achieve a minimum desirable standard of social and economic well-being (Bullis 2013).

Awareness Gained on Social Justice Issues and the Economic and social Effects of Modern Life

This job was beneficial for me as it gave me a lot of literacy/information about social work. I learned that a social worker should always uphold and carry forward the values, ethics, knowledge, and mission of the profession. This job made me aware of core values of social work such as-respecting peoples worth and dignity, encouraging mutual participation, upholding confidentiality and handling conflict properly. It helped me accept and appreciate diverse population and understand the factors leading to social justice in the society. I also learned other principles of social work such as principle of individualization, purposeful expression of feelings, empathy towards client, non-judgmental attitude and accountability to work (Street 2014). Another important aspect of my profession is having accurate business communication skills and interpersonal skills. Though I was not efficient in communicating with diverse group of client in the beginning, with time I developed both business communication and interpersonal skills. This became possible only because of my daily activity of interacting with diverse groups of the client. In my profession, the most important thing was getting the people to express their feelings and listening to them patiently (Koprowska 2014). I learned these skills in this job. My verbal communication and effective speech delivery skills enhanced when I had to give training to many new volunteers coming in this field. I also learned problem solving expertise and negotiation skills when many situations arose when I had to solve conflict among clients or coworkers. Through frequent emails and answering queries, I also learned verbal and non-verbal skills (Cummings and Worley 2014).

After doing the job of a volunteer in Let’s Go On Community, I have more respect for all the non-profit organization and the service they provide. I realized the importance of non-profit organization in my community. Their efforts and endeavors for the betterment of the society are commendable. A layman can never understand the role played by these organization in the overall functioning of the economy. I became aware of their role only when I got involved in their service to welfare of the community. They have directly or indirectly boosted the economy of the nation by their philanthropic service. Their role has evolved with time, and they are now expanding their service to those areas too which is still neglected (Galaskiewicz 2016). For instance, now many organization are paying attention to female sexual abuse rampant in the society. Different non-profit organization focus on one particular area and our team’s main focus was on sponsoring education of under-privileged children. Not for profit organizations are very competent now, and they carry forward their activities much like for-profit corporations. It just not only provides to inferior group of people in the community but also provide means of livelihood for people who engage in social work activities. They involve third parties and services in their day-to-day operations and indirectly stimulate other facets of economy.

Adams, M. and Bell, L.A. eds., 2016. Teaching for diversity and social justice. Routledge.

Baldwin, M., 2016. Social work, critical reflection and the learning organization. Routledge.

Bullis, R.K., 2013. Spirituality in social work practice. Taylor & Francis.

Cummings, T.G. and Worley, C.G., 2014. Organization development and change. Cengage learning.

Galaskiewicz, J., 2016. Social organization of an urban grants economy: A study of business philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. Elsevier.

Kadushin, A. and Harkness, D., 2014. Supervision in social work. Columbia University Press.

Koprowska, J., 2014. Communication and interpersonal skills in social work. Learning Matters.

Levy, C.S. and Slavin, S., 2013. Social work ethics on the line. Routledge.

Reamer, F.G., 2013. Social work values and ethics. Columbia University Press.

Street, B.V., 2014. Social literacies: Critical approaches to literacy in development, ethnography and education. Routledge.

Sue, D.W., Rasheed, M.N. and Rasheed, J.M., 2015. Multicultural Social Work Practice: A Competency-Based Approach to Diversity and Social Justice. John Wiley & Sons.

Worth, M.J., 2016. Nonprofit management: Principles and practice. Sage Publications.