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Arthur Kaseke Correspondent
One sad feature of our modern-day societies is that many individuals and communities are being traumatised by the demands and excesses of our globalised world, a factor that has given birth to increased levels of poverty, environmental degradation, natural disasters and a severe breakdown on moral values which in turn, has exacerbated the breaking up of families, economic deprivation, social exclusion and political marginalisation of many of the earth’s population.

This pessimism is further compounded by the fact that rich and powerful nations seem to enjoy the continued existence of the gap between the rich of this world and the poor, as evidenced by the continued existence of skewed terms of trade, fomenting of wars and the developed countries’ bullying tactics with regards to developing countries that seek to assert their independence and sovereignty.

A case in point is our situation in Zimbabwe where, after embarking on the course of action that sought to correct colonial imbalances in resources ownership, we found ourselves being slapped with a raft of debilitating sanctions which analysts say has cost us US$42 billion in lost revenue.

One wonders where we could be on the economic index if such inflows had not been disrupted: courtesy of the illegal sanctions regime.

Globally, the scenario is also not very pleasing where, despite the phenomenal advances in science and technology, the actual situation on the ground where the majority of people live is grim.

Underdevelopment features more prominently on the planet’s landscape than development, with poverty, hunger, unemployment, colonising wars and environmental degradation being symptomatic of this fact.

On the other hand, the rich are getting richer as evidenced by the number of billionaires as the reports in the Forbes magazine indicates; whilst multinational corporations and the Wall Street financial gurus are rolling in cash and ostentatious wealth.

Indeed our globalised market economy epitomises what one writer once referred to as the heartlessness of capitalism, for, as the living conditions of the majority of mankind continues to get more and more desperate, various models of economic development that have been proffered since the advent of colonialism and imperialist plunder have produced little or no tangible benefits to the marginalised and the poor.

Modernisation theory and its trickledown effect was once touted as the panacea to the developing countries’ economic woes. Then came the ubiquitous economic structural adjustment programmes that sadly left a trail of destruction to the economies of many developing countries.

In all instances, the result has been underdevelopment due to the intensely competitive nature of our globalised market-driven economy with serious ramifications to many developing nations’ ability to sustain high levels of expenditure devoted to social welfare services provision.

In Britain for example, our former colonising power and to which most of our social welfare policies are modelled, its much-vaunted welfare state founded itself being drastically whittled down, with the severe cuts of social security benefits to many groups of people; the reasoning being that the state should get out of peoples’ lives, a process which began in earnest in the mid-1970s and carried forward by subsequent governments.

In the case of Zimbabwe, where the effects of structural adjustment programmes introduced in the 90s and the scourge of the illegal sanctions have left an indelible mark of destruction on the lives of the majority of people, the role and the function of social work cannot be over-emphasised.

Perhaps, some people do wonder what social work is all about or what social workers actually do as their existence is shrouded in secrecy; and are often misunderstood or that these cadres themselves, unlike doctors and lawyers, have failed to make an impact on society in so far as their role and function as change agents is concerned.

In simple terms, social work can be defined as the helping profession, which seeks to promote social change through various intervention measures and to assist towards solving human relationship problems.

It also seeks to assist mankind cope with their environment and in the process empowering them through various capacity-building measures of total liberation and the enhancement of social well-being.

Furthermore social work becomes more prominent in the field of social development and social justice, with its emphasis on social ills and inequality as being the root cause of many personal pathologies.

For the avoidance of doubt, social work does not absolve people from taking responsibility of shaping their destiny or making choices.

However, having to make choices in the abstract is meaningless without the economic power or to realise these choices.

This brings to mind the subject matter of human rights that has become synonymous with our legion of civic organisations with their cacophony on human rights being the be-all and end-all ignoring the economic rights that have become the privilege of the rich industrialised countries and their local elite or their political quislings.

To all intents and purpose, any talk of human rights that is devoid of economic content is at best hollow and at worst hypocritical as most such human rights groups now stand accused of fleecing international donors under the guise of championing human rights in Zimbabwe.

It is therefore in this context that Zimbabwe’s progressive economic policies that seek to take on board the poor and the marginalised through land reform and the economic empowerment programmes actually resonate well with the social work principles of social justice and human dignity.

As Professor Lena Daminelli of Sheffield University once noted in one presentation, it is possible for the world to get rid of poverty if the UN were to introduce an underdevelopment levy on the top 100 companies in the world located mainly in Japan, USA, Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands as these are the very companies and countries that have made a substantial contribution of creating the problems of poverty and underdevelopment in the first place through their unbridled greed and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources the world over and developing countries in particular.

In this instance, social workers liberationist role becomes more prominent focusing mainly on advocacy and social activism and as catalysts, for change with emphasis on facilitating empowerment programmes, instead of the conservative status quo maintenance role that has become the hall mark of social work practice the world over.

Thus, social development from a social work perspective seeks to address the structural causes of human misery, itself a consequence of capitalism and the globalised market economy.

This explains why the likes of the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo our Father Zimbabwe, who was one of the pioneering social workers and Winnie Madikizela- Mandela of South Africa, rose to become liberation war icons, as they were guided by their social work liberation ideals of service to the community, the down-trodden and the politically and economically-marginalised.

There are also areas of specialisation in social work practice as in clinical social work and counselling service which seeks to augment medical practitioners in their dealing with patients as most ailments are a consequence of bio-psycho-social malfunctioning of individuals and families.

Palliative care on the other hand focuses on chronic illnesses including, HIV/Aids where the thrust is not to wait for a person to die but to allow a person to die being surrounded by his/her relatives.

Social work also plays a significant role in the justice delivery system through what is now commonly known as forensic social work where focus is on the interface between society’s legal and human systems, entailing provision of expert testimonies in courts of law: and to assist legal systems on such issues as child custody disputes in divorce cases, juvenile delinquency, spouse or child abuse and rape.

Perhaps the call by suspended Chief Magistrate Mr Mishrod Guvamombe at one of the social workers’ conference on social workers to actively participate in the justice delivery system, especially as it pertains to the provision of the of the Children’s Act really comes to mind, whereby he bemoaned the substandard or poor quality reports that were being submitted to courts on matters pertaining to probation services, child adoption and the custody of minors in divorce cases.