INVOLVING IN COMMUNITY SERVICE

Meaning of Community Service

A community is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, religion, race, identity and often have a common cultural heritage. Belonging to a community is a basic requirement for one to belong to a society. Community services are activities of community members for the benefit of the public or its institutions. Community services lead to development. Engaging in community services is supposed to be willingly, however, some people are compelled to do so by:

Government as part of citizenship requirement,

 Court, in addition to other criminal justice sanctions,

Their school, to meet the requirement of a class.

Types of community service

The following are the ways of involving one in community service:

Security: Security is a degree of protection against danger, damage, loss and criminal activities. People who feel secured, feel relaxed mentally and emotionally. As citizens and members our communities, it is important that we render security services to our communities so that lives and properties can be protected and secured. We can render security services through

Condemning criminals and criminal activities,

Reporting criminals to community leaders,

Help to prosecute and penalized criminals,

Sponsoring vigilante services etc.

Road Construction and Rehabilitation: Roads are very important assets in communities. Participation in road construction and rehabilitation is one of the services expected of a community member as a contribution towards the development of the community.

Environmental Sanitation: This is the improving or maintaining the standard of the basic environmental conditions affecting the well-being of people. These include clean and safe water supply human and industrial waste disposal, protection of food from biological and chemical contaminants etc. We should ensure that we live in a clean environment in order to promote good health. Health is wealth.

      

Peace Making:  To have peace in the community requires a collective efforts. People must be willing at all times to render services that promote peaceful co-existence of community members. Human beings by nature have conflicting interest and desires which are bound to clash. We need to make peace to weld people together again. Peace is a facilitation of progress in every community.

Effective Representation: Once in a while, due to certain qualities a person possessed, he/she may be called to represent the community especially on inter-group matters. When the need for representation arises, we should make ourselves and our services available to our community.

Care for the Elderly and Disabled: In every community, there are the elderly, who are people that are advanced in age, and the disabled, who are people that are physically or mentally handicapped. They cannot help themselves in many ways. Every able member of the community is expected to help them as much as possible in order to alleviate their suffering and to give them a sense of belonging.

Philanthropy: In every community, there are people who are so poor that they cannot afford a number of things especially the basic needs of man. Philanthropy is the act of donating money in assistance to people in need. Every average member of a community is expected to donate money to assist the needy.   

Importance of a Community to Man.

A. Membership of a society:  it is our community that determines the society to which we belongs, without belonging to one of the societies making up a community; we cannot belong to such a community.

B. Marriage:  in a society if a person reaches adult age he/she is expected to marry for the primary purpose of bearing young ones.  The choice of a marriage partner is not something that is left to the whims and caprices of individuals, the community sets the boundary that determines who one should or should not marry. In some communities, one can marry a member of his village whereas in others, it is a taboo.

C. Inheritance:  who inherits does not depend on us or our families but on the community to which we belong. Similarly, what we inherit also depends on the community to which will be long, without inheritance rule in communities, there will be inheritance scramble by the people. This can lead to chaos.

D. Death:  while alive we want to be honoured as human beings, when we die too, we want to be honoured through proper burial ceremonies and rites.  The Corpse of a Dead man does not actually belong to his children or family, but to his Community. No family can bury its dead member without the involvement of the community. it is a community that buries  a dead members