Individual and organizational roles, tasks, and skills for social change and progress
Being a responsible and active citizen is not easy especially if someone wants to be heavily involved in his or her community, doing many tasks for various projects. Though, it is an exciting thing to do to our lives as it gives more meaning given that there will always be challenges in places or communities where we live, big or small. In addition, social activism could also a very spiritually fulfilling task if everything is well put into balance as we can be a catalyst for positive changes in our locality or even to the whole world. However, from the individual to the organizational level, people must really identify which role they can be effective so that the their community, group, or organization can successfully create changes or make something better such as policies, systems, and even customs that are oppressive or unfair to others. By carefully identifying the needs of the organization and knowing your focus, you can become more efficient.
Choosing the appropriate roles saves time and energy and it can also help you as an individual and as a group fulfill important tasks or goals systematically. If you want to “change the game”, you must first learn how to play so you can come up with new ideas that are relevant and not useless. First, you must be truly responsible so people can respect your ideas and views as they see them being practiced. You must show sincerity in helping to keep your community safe, peaceful, and productive so that people will believe your words and support you when you say or propose something. Always remember that you chose to be an agent of progress so it is your chosen role to make the public aware and involved on these changes for them to have better understanding and motivation to act. Whether creating positive solutions in the community level or offering alternatives to unfair policies on the regional level, activists must learn how to be a real reformer who is smart and knowledgeable regarding the laws, society, and institutions.
As an activist who is dedicated to bring changes to the society/community, you might focus your energy on establishing and maintaining an effective communication strategy with other stake holders and even people who are in the position and has the power to make changes on the governmental level. You must develop this skill for you to have a real impact on your targets and for you to function effectively on so many levels such as judicial, city hall, corporate, etc. Being well-versed on strategic actions such as lobbying, rallies, petitions, and even legal aspects are some of the best ways to sustain an advocacy or reform something.
As an individual, we are all somehow doing actions directly whether intentionally or not. Some of our actions break rules and defy laws even without us knowing it. However, for sure there are many times that we do this consciously because we know something is not right and that we have to do what we know is better even if that means the opposite, right? State laws are not an exception. But the point here is that with our simple direct actions, we contribute to the change or the collective as a citizen. Our dedication to the preservation of individual freedom, values, justice, principles, democracy, etc. motivates us to help and contribute to the society.
Lastly, having the right skills for gathering resource persons and inviting audiences and participants is also very important in creating social change. People have different interests and it is the role of an organizer to start a social movement and win the trust of all the involved people or groups for them to establish a connection and collaboration. Getting more support, spreading the campaign to a broader audience, and starting a sense of solidarity for a concrete action while also keeping the advocacy active is also very important task of an agent of change. Organizing and educating the communities and helping to keep them engaged are some of the important component for democracy and social progress. To be truly effective on this task, one must learn the science and the art of promoting strategies to the grassroots and securing long term engagements to ensure success in creating alternatives and better paradigm.
Inspired by the ideas of Bill Moyers:
- https://commonslibrary.org/the-four-roles-of-social-activism/
