Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, May 25: As society becomes more complex with time, issues from different corners arise. Most issues are often ignored due to the presence of restrictions or social stigma that come with it. But there are groups of people who bridge the space between the society and those ignored.
Such a group is the nongovernmental welfare activist Prodigals’ Home. It is a non-governmental organisation that was established in 1990 with a vision for ‘sustainable development and equitable social order through people’s participation.’
The organisation creates and develops capacity for sustainable livelihood; educates people in proper management of resources; promotes health, and the environment. It emerged primarily to address the issue of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation of drug and alcohol abuse. Over the years, the organisation has ventured into the fields of community health, women and child development, rural development, research and documentation, and facilitation of grass root organisations in Nagaland.
Gradually, the organisation took up baseline surveys in various areas, research, documentation, and publication with the objective of facilitating appropriate planning, policy making, and strategies in both state and regional levels.
The Prodigals’ Home hosts the Certificate Course on Social Concern and Leadership (CCSCL) annually since 2013. It is a course designed for church leaders, theological students, aspiring social workers, and any person with a desire to broaden their minds on contemporary social issues and effective response.
Till date, the organisation has trained about 158 students from Nagaland and from other states for the CCSCL. This year the course started from May 15 and continued till May 25 with 16 trainees.
The closing function was conducted on Saturday at its office located at the NSCB complex, at Khermahal in Dimapur.
Delivering the welcome speech and highlighting the concept of CCSCL, the director of Prodigals’ Home, K Ela, said that the present society was confronted with numerous problems and concerns created by the citizen and society.
As Prodigals’ Home continues to work in the field with the community to address issues of social issues, she said the ownership to confront the issues is needed which, according to her, should start from the home and spread to the neighbourhood, street, church, and so on.
“Social consciousness, concern, and love for neighbours are what we have to strengthen and revive today,” she maintained.
Ela said that many changes can be brought about through effective leadership by leaders who are able to understand and analyse the root causes of various problems in the society.
She was positive that the CCSCL would benefit everyone, especially leaders who can initiate the process of change along with the ones who are longing for a change for the better.
Also, the assistant director of Prodigals’ Home, Maong Jamir, said that a person equipped with leadership skills without social concern may be fit to lead only in places where there are no social problems.
“In our problem-laden present generation, unless a leader has proper knowledge about the prevailing issues, he or she may turn out to be the worst leader despite the end number of skills,” Jamir said in his address.
Jamir grieved that a number of current breed of leaders respond inappropriately to such issues. ‘They are resultantly making themselves ineffective leaders due to lack of in-depth understanding of the social issues around them.’
With his 15 years of association with Prodigals’ Home, Jamir said “I have realised that the most practical knowledge we receive are not from highly qualified people in air-conditioned rooms, but in the field where one gets the opportunity to deal with people who are effected by difficult situation such as drug addicts, people infected by HIV and AIDS, and such.”
“With faith that ‘change for the better would happen through their dynamic and prophetic leadership, Prodigals’ Home took up its dream and a challenge to train social leaders from rich experiences of the organisation for the last 28 years,” he said.
According to Jamir, the course started in 2013. In a span of seven years, the organisation was able to train 158 students. “Our motive is not to make profit out of the training but to contribute our available resources to the society,” he maintained.
The social worker added that the CCSCL was to create social awareness, impart experience working in different fields, to listen to voices from the issues, and to create theological and spiritual connections in the society. He was positive that change will be inevitable when one is open to learning, and is sensitised and trained.
In the day’s programme, a few trainees, along with former trainees, were also allowed to share their feed-back about the course and the organisation.
Among the new ones, Vesanyilu Sapu said, “My intention in joining the course was simply to complete and get a certificate. However, after being a part of this course, things turned out differently; my ideology about society completely changed. It not only broadened my mind but taught me a lot about core issues and the sad reality prevailing in our society.” She spoke of gratitude for the organisation for trying its best to mitigate society’s myriad problems.
