Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times
Sociology
The text takes the reader through reasons that differentiate between individuals who get actively involved in community issues and those who get overwhelmed .the author examines issues of how to maintain commitment in involvement in the long-term and the importance of the same for a community. Drawing from his wealth in research about citizen responsibilities as well as the empowerment of the common man, the author asserts that citizens can exert compelling influences on affairs in their communities and nations if they embrace empowerment and get involved and engaged in the goings –on of their communities (Devalia, 2008).
A social issue becomes a movement when ordinary citizens make a conscious decision to engage the matter and engage stakeholders in serious discussions so as to result in solutions that suit the entire community. The author emphasizes social movements in peace justice and environmental protection. In Peace , social activism and involvement in communal discussions, protests, community education are some of the ways in which individual members of a community can engage others in discussion of important issues and obtain desirable results. In the pursuit of justice social responsibility movements may be aided by dialogue between parties involved, community engagement and education as well as protests if need be. Living out as an example to be emulated in that sector is also a form of activism in this area. The same is true for social activism for environmental causes. All plans involve the pooling together and connecting of members of a community, so as to unite their pursuit .movement sustainability is based largely on commitment of individual members of a community as well as properly laid down structures of implementation. Social movements are made a success by their ability to bring together people with similar interest, physically, mentally, spiritually and psychologically. In this unity they can achieve almost every thing the set their minds to.
Discussion 5
In the eighth chapter Loeb focuses on the power of involvement through already existing institutions and outfits in an organization to further causes. These provide an already established base from which to launch publicity campaigns on various issues (Everett, Garland&Roy,2001). The publicity campaign employs the traditional modes of passing information which includes meetings, fliers and rallies as well as the more virtual methods where protests and campaigns are created via social networking sites such as Face book, Twitter and other online technologies.
One can measure the effectiveness of a campaign by the response in terms of numbers of people that join the campaign or by seeing transformation on the particular subject of the campaign, where people may begin to respond positively to the campaign by their actions. Public campaigns can be enormously effective especially when done well. They can result to global changes even when started by sole individuals.
Discussion 6
The text has brought to light the importance of social activism and the need to speak out and assert one’s point of view especially where change needs to occur. In the group project about youth and drugs, the course has certainly provided the motivation to get actively involved in anti-drug campaigns in a chosen neighbourhood. As suggested in the text we have chosen to start our campaigns from already established institution such as schools, churches and youth halls where we plan to have meetings and rallies with young people, to educate them on the danger of drug abuse. We will also seek to understand the reason for drug abuse and educate young people on the same as well as ways to get out of drug abuse cycles.
We will also launch a social media campaign against drug abuse where we will employ the use of social media tools popular with young people such as Face book, Twitter, My space and many others (Nair, 2012). This is expected to yield particularly high results among the youth who spend considerably long period s of their time on them. A poster and flier campaign will also supplement campaign efforts.
References
Loeb, P.R. (2010). Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times. New York: St.
Martin’s Press
Nair, s. (2012).Slacktivism Vs. Activism: Social Media Campaigns in India.New Delhi: LAP
Lambert Academic Publishing
Everett, M., Garland, E. A., & Roy, M. (2001). Science, History, and Social Activism: A Tribute to
Everett Mendelsohn.MA:Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Devalia,A.(2008).Personal Social Rsponsibility.London:Nirvana
