Voluntarism To Social Work And Social Services In Bangladesh

Abstract

Natural disasters like floods, droughts, cyclones, storms, burning of houses and river bank erosion along with famine and poverty are the frequent causes of damage to crops, lives and property. Every year millions of people directly and indirectly become the victims of these natural calamities. Many of them are displaced by river bank erosion, and migrate to urban areas in search of employment. Many children are involved in child labor; the young girls are victims of trafficking for prostitution, and many of them are victims of violence while working as domestic maid servants. Many of the elderly people become beggars to survive due to the decline of joint family system. Many of the children do not get a chance to go to school. Many of the people have no ability for treatment due to financial constraints. Often the parents are not able to arrange marriage for their young daughters because of high demand of dowry. In many times to solve these problems, voluntary services play vital role in different perspectives. Voluntarism is a process of voluntary action to serve the people in distress situations. The main focus of this paper is to examine to what extent the social work and social services are rooted in voluntarism by individual, community and organizational initiatives in Bangladesh.