Saturday Nov 30, 2024
Saturday Nov 30, 2024
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Material or financial deprivations, especially among the have-nots, could easily be seen or assessed whereas spiritual, psychological and many other forms of invisible or latent needs may not be easily detectable, thus calling for specialised detective procedures and processes to know about them. People with such deprivation are the ‘unserved persons’ we are talking about and have to be attended to in order to make them behave appropriately within the society they live in so that there will be less undesirable conflicts between such persons and the society in which they live – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara
Human beings even if they show outward pretentions of not subject to any deficiencies are in reality do suffer, in many cases, silently in a variety of deficiency syndromes that may give rise to dysfunctional behaviour within them, towards their families and also for the society they live in.
Since such deprivations usually do not get exposed as the familiar issues of poverty, lack of education, unemployment, biological and mental illnesses, they are not attended to as the familiar issues and thus termed ‘unserved’ and have to be attended to in different ways so that they do not become to self-harm the persons concerned, their families and finally the society they live in.
The ‘unserved’ arena is very wide and complex thus all types of the ‘unserved ‘areas cannot be attended to so that intervention programmes have to be selective in prioritising the ‘unserved’ areas for implementation.
This write-up posits five causes or aspects that give rise to ‘unserved’ phenomenon viz. dearth of needed information, detrimental mind-sets, suspicious of the socio-cultural external environment, valuing one’s lifestyle superior to others, and deviant sexual behaviour. Implementing the ‘serve the unserved’ interventions should be devoid of bias in terms of religion, gender, ethnicity, social status, class divisions, education/literacy and demographical considerations.
This write-up advocates a paradigm shift from what are being done in the traditional/familiar intervention programmes in poverty alleviation, life skills training, entrepreneurship etc. and projects ‘serving the unserved’ paradigm as a dedicated process to emancipate the ‘invisible’ personalities who are knowingly or unknowingly carrying the ‘unserved needs’ within them. May God Almighty give us the strengths and His blessings to be successful in this endeavour.
Whatever a person may be, whatever faith or ideology he may belong to, whatever status he may have in society, whatever luxurious lifestyles he is capable of living, whatever criminal desires he may, wittingly or unwittingly, nurse within himself or whatever sexual orientation he may profess – every person in any human divide suffers from a variety of deprivations ranging from material, spiritual, psychological, social, sociological, sexual and so on. These have to be attended to either by the persons themselves or by outside forces capable of helping them in order to fill the void due to overt or covert forms of deprivations.
Material or financial deprivations, especially among the have-nots, could easily be seen or assessed whereas spiritual, psychological and many other forms of invisible or latent needs may not be easily detectable, thus calling for specialised detective procedures and processes to know about them. People with such deprivation are the ‘unserved persons’ we are talking about and have to be attended to in order to make them behave appropriately within the society they live in so that there will be less undesirable conflicts between such persons and the society 
in which they live.
Conflict per se is not necessarily bad and may in a community setting give rise to better understanding of different or alternative points of view for the progress of the community. What we are interested in is the conflicts created by people who are ‘unserved’ in their requirements for healthy livelihood for various reasons and thus act differently from the behaviour patterns of the community they live in. Undesirable conflicts, either overt or covert, may lead to dysfunctional behaviour of conflict-prone people within the community they live in that eventually could lead the community to be unproductive especially in the psycho-socio-cultural aspects giving rise to undesirable confrontations in a multi-ethic, multi-cultural and multi-religious society as in Sri Lanka.
The conflict prone behaviour of the unserved may not be easily visible, detectable or guessable and may arise from various aspects of human failings or shortcomings. The cognitive aspect of that behaviour, structural and/or functional, unknown and/or unrealised by the person concerned but having manifestations of varied outcomes that may be physical, physiological, psychological or sociological which would be unhealthy to the person in question and also for others within their reach.
The conflicts could also be openly displayed by the unserved personalities in ways not acceptable to the values and norms of the mainstream society thus leading either marginalisation or in extreme instances complete rejection of such personalities which would develop into chaotic situation in the otherwise peaceful community/society. What does this mean is that due to one or a combination of psycho-socio-cultural unserved need, one could with or without their being aware of their deprivations, become directly or indirectly a potential candidate for harming the community or the wider society at large – and this is definitely undesirable and has to be attended to with utmost care and guidance.
Serving the unserved needs of all the categories of the human divide is an impossible task and therefore have to be selective in prioritising the critical areas and the strategic groups to which efficient and effective interventions have to be designed, developed and applied to attain the goal of mainstreaming the unserved.
‘Serving the unserved’ paradigm encompasses a wider horizon than the familiar issues we are presently accustomed to such as poverty alleviation, psycho-social interventions, motivational programs, leadership training, career guidance programmes, religious sermons and so on. These familiar issues have to be addressed no doubt – and that is relatively easy per se – yet many issues of the society are due to the various unserved needs which are completely hidden within every category of people which they themselves may not know for certain and/or if known may pretend as if such deprivations do not exist specifically due to faulty notions of self-pride or inflated social worthiness, snobbish thinking, learned helplessness or in spiritually based stoic attitudes. Awareness of these hidden issues and identification of the issues must take primacy to reach a workable solution from different alternatives in order to help the persons concerned to have a healthy living.
Every person irrespective of their financial, social, cultural, spiritual standings is impinged with a multitude of unserved needs that usually become the causes of their behaviour not congruent with that of the mainstream society they are part of and thus everybody needs some sort of help to overcome their unserved deficiencies. The unserved domain is extensively large and therefore every aspect of unserved deficiencies cannot be tackled and hence as mentioned earlier a way of selection and prioritisation of critical issues have to be dealt with to find a way forward to the problem at hand.
This write-up takes five ‘unserved area’ for discussion viz. (1) lack or dearth of information on ways for better living; (2) upholding a mind-set (mental model) detrimental to their progress, (3) suspicious of the external socio-cultural environment as a threat to their dignity and decorum, (4) valuing of their own lifestyles as perfect and thereby showing resistance to change, and (5) hidden dissatisfaction or deviance in sexual activities and/or sexual orientations.
The deprivation prone persons – who are the unserved – may fall into one or a combination of the five areas given above and may also have many other unserved factors not mentioned herein due to selective choice for this write-up. This deprivation is spread across all sections of the population irrespective of class divisions, religious divide, educational/professional categorisations, mode of earning, ethnic groupings, gender, sexual orientations and so on.
Thus all proposed/intended interventions that may be used to address the task at hand must be devoid of any bias or discrimination based on class divisions, religious divide, etc. as given above. It should be a completely new thinking in which what matters should be ‘serving the unserved’ in the unserved areas inherent to the individuals or groups irrespective of who or what they are in terms of their identities, vocations and lifestyles – thus from rich to poor, gender divide to sexuality, religion to atheism, elites to peasants, educated to illiterates, business persons, salaried persons, wage earners to unemployed, and finally the old, middle aged to young (or youth) should be the differentiated population targets for the proposed interventions.
Though it may appear as a daunting task looking from the divisions thus stated, nevertheless it may not be so in operationalisation of the interventions as each intervention has to be for a specific unserved target and that simplifies the issue.
In the South Asian context wherein Sri Lanka too belongs, the main identity criterion is religion – Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims – the main religions. It is imperative that the people belonging to a religion must uphold to their own religion devotedly and should not interfere in the religions of others – non-interference may not be there as such, but that is a different issue.
To everyone their religion is sacred to them – there cannot be any alternative opinion on this. But when in the process of helping humanity, one should not think of helping their own community alone. There will always be religious obligations on people of each religion to help their co-religionists especially in the domain of poverty alleviation and may also be in the teaching of their religions in order they be within the boundaries of their religions – and that is alright and acceptable.
The philosophy of ‘serving the unserved’ paradigm is a wholly humanistic approach that goes to help the people where it is required in terms of the ‘unserved’ criterion – this approach is also part of every religion as an optional criterion. Therefore ‘serving the unserved’ also emerges from each and every religion too but without biasing the intervention rendered through the lens of the helpers. That said this intervention technique could be compared to what is done in counselling programmes where the therapist plays a neutral role.
Lack or dearth of or non-accessibility to the correct/helpful information could be the major issue among certain members across all divide in a society and that would be their unserved need area. For example, people undergoing certain psychological problems such as stress (distress) and / or any mild abnormal behaviour in them or any other member in their family, might resort to seeking remedies through, say, witchcraft due to their ignorance of the availability of proven scientific interventions of established medical practices, therapeutic counselling, etc.
Similarly, lack of information on the value and worth of secular and religious education could lead them and their families especially their offspring to anti-social and criminal behaviour. People having all sorts of drawbacks due to ‘information poverty’ must be helped through appropriate intervention techniques to deliver the required information to that unserved population.
Those who are unrealistic, dogmatic or adamant and believe that the lifestyles and the behavioural patterns they are adhering to are perfect are of the unchanging traditional segment of the community or be of a cultish group. They will not easily assimilate with the mainstream community which they pejoratively perceive as morally inappropriate and thus corrupting society. By this outlook they along with their family members remain static, not at all progressive and remain as hindrance to the other members in the mainstream society. Reforming this segment will be difficult and the unserved area could be corrected only through schooling of their next young generation and effective public discourses.
Sex, sexuality, promiscuousness, infidelity, etc. in the sex part in persons due to unserved desires, fulfilments and dysfunctional sex performances play a great role in their behaviours within them, their families and their interactions with the society. The sex spectrum, so to speak, where a variety of normal, acceptable, weird and deviant sexual notions and fantasies could emerge within an individual are areas ‘unserved’ or ‘unfulfilled’ that may call for effective interventions in order that the persons having one or a combination of unserved needs – legitimate or fantasy – may feel cared for in their predicaments.
Examples: one spouse not satisfied with their others’ sexual desires, displays, interactions etc. and thus may seek fulfilment of the ‘unserved’ needs through other ways away from the marital bond; one spouse (or both!) with all the satisfaction received may desire outside indulgence for variety, curiosity or fantasy; people in satisfying straight relationships may desire non-straight indulgences; those who abhor straight marriage or the opposite gender may resort to same-sex relationships – and also there may be persons in this category having sexual health issues such as impotence in men and various sexual dysfunctions in women; those who cheat on their spouses; those who are paedophiles; sexual harassments in households, work places and public spaces – and the list could go on and on. Thus we see a variety of ‘unserved’ needs, which may be at certain instances termed unavoidable and thus not wrong per se whereas in other situations could be termed undesirable and thus interventions to serve the unserved needs may pose Himalayan tasks which may not be possible by individuals or social organisations with limited scope or means.
Addressing the unserved needs in the sex arena must be from a macro approach through policy initiatives with the state/governmental patronage playing a vital role. The government must become the lead agent to address the unserved needs, legitimate or otherwise, in the society in the sex arena through interventions/programs based specially on education and training that would help the ‘affected’ youth, adults and senior citizens, where necessary, to be ‘born-again’ people to live thereafter through a positive and acceptable approach to themselves, their families and the society at large.
As the government has statutory provisions to address issues in civil and criminal matters, it also should get fully involved in addressing the issue of ‘serving the unserved’ in sex oriented issues that are plaguing the society in unprecedented ways now. When the unserved needs in the sex arena are not attended to by effective procedures or interventions, then there arises the social problems of, say, child abuse, rape, prostitution etc. that destroys the healthy social fabric of the society we live in.
Unserved needs which are natural and have legitimate reasons to exist in a relationship such as incompatibility between spouses, perpetual domestic violence, intended divorce or abandonment, quarrelling over domestic or marital issues, drunkenness, drugs, mental problems, employment issues etc. could be corrected through ‘opening-up’ the issues in intervention sessions, initiating discussions among peers, participating in outdoor activities or counselling through a series of counselling sessions – the last may not be easy yet corrections may be possible.
On the other hand, issues such as involvement in or longing for extra relationship affairs, cheating on spouses, sudden development of sexual orientation different from what is implied in the existing relationship, exhibiting psychological cruelty, pervert thinking, etc. will be very difficult for correction through psychosocial programmes and may be allowed to exist as they are for the time being until society as a whole gets endowed with better intervention techniques in the future to address such issues. What this means is that all ‘unserved areas’ cannot be addressed for rectification and therefore a choice had to be made and feasible areas only should be selected for the required therapy or interventions.
The unserved needs which this write-up talks about is on social issues of individuals and not on biological sicknesses that are usually treated through Western or Indigenous medication. The advancement especially in Western medicine has definitely helped the treatment of the biological sicknesses to a large extent but not one hundred percent curative for the medical issues. Similarly, interventions for ‘serving the unserved needs’ in the sociocultural domain too will not be fully comprehensive and will fail in certain cases thus has to be taken as a satisficing approach and not as deterministic application.
Readers of this write-up will note that of the five areas identified to be addressed for ‘serving the unserved’, we have discussed more on the sex/sexuality area than the other four. This is because sexual underpinnings or motives are the causal factors for most of the social issues that are ‘unserved’ in the present postmodern society due to freedom that may be enjoyed in the permissible open society we live in bombarded by sex-based news, views and graphics in the Internet that are accessible to anyone without any restrictions. Today, family or household life is disrupted not due to poverty, low class livelihood or educational standings, to mention a few, but due mostly to sexual misbehaviour of one sort or other that are anathema to healthy family life.
We are familiar with the many of the presently existing programs such as poverty alleviation, life skills development, vocational skills training, career selection seminars, leadership and motivation training, how to face interview sessions, entrepreneurship and self-employment training etc. These are done by individual facilitators, private educational/training institutions, social and/or religion-based associations either for a fee or free of charge. In all these interventions, the facilitating persons/organisations are aware of the issues/problems, have no difficulties in identifying the problems, and each facilitating person or body has their different ways of executing their training sessions the way they have decided as the right methodological interventions. What we have spoken about in this write-up as ‘serving the unserved’ is completely different from the above, requires new thinking and approach, and have to be executed through trained and experienced facilitators with dedication and commitments.
The first step for any facilitating body trying to address the ‘unserved’ issue is the awareness of an ‘unserved’ category that needs intervention. Once the awareness of the problem gets known, the next step is to identify the ‘unserved’ problem. Awareness and identification of the problem are very difficult tasks in the ‘unserved’ domain as defined for this write-up and thus would require the implementers of the interventions to seek all possible information and help from governmental as well as from active social/health organisations that should form their data base to draw up their alternative methods/techniques to address the chosen ‘unserved’ issue. Next they have to select the ‘one’ alternative that they may reasonably perceive as the correct one.
On implementing the selected alternative intervention technique, they must continually get feedback to improve on the technique for their future application. Thus the responsibility to ‘serve the unserved’ entails commitment, dedication and beyond all an open mindedness and unbiased attitude as to who or what the clients are. In short, ‘serving the unserved’ is emancipation of the invisible social sufferers. It may be possible that the ‘serve the unserved’ this write-up is emphasising may be presently operationalised by social organisations under different names and if so it is appreciable and may be under psychosocial interventions and/or clinical approaches.
But what we advocate is a paradigm shift from what are being done so that dedicated interventions could be designed and used to tackle all feasible aspects of the ‘unserved’ category to make the society better off than what they are in now. May all persons of all the religions endeavour to put into practice what has been put forward as ‘serving the unserved’ in this write-up.
(The writer is a qualified mechanical engineer and freelance consultant in management studies.)
