Citizenship and Responsibilities
Citizenship is belonging or being part of a certain community, small or large. However, citizenship comes in hand with duties and responsibilities. As a member of a particular community one is obligated to the certain task he or she in order to provide a peaceful and better environment for the rest. People should be given a sense of belongingness. Citizens engage themselves in shared responsibilities in the various form of participation. Leaders in all communities, therefore, have a great responsibility in creating awareness that every member has a duty to make a difference whether in a major or a minor way. Every citizen, therefore, should be aware of key factors such as, history of the community, social capital and empowerment, and privilege that help in defining a citizen. Citizens might play these roles in ways such as; volunteering in local homeless, advocating against drug and substance use among the youths, guidance, and counseling and also tutoring in psychological sectors among others. Each individual, therefore, should engage actively in an effort to give service to their community.
Shared Responsibilities and Interdependence
Shared responsibilities involve members of the community working together toward achieving a common goal. Members of the society can form groups, organizations, and associations in an informed and committed setting and effectively work together for the betterment of their society. The effort can be geared toward satisfying their common interests or needs of every individual involved. They can also result in the creation of facilities such as rehabilitation centers, hospitals, schools, religious shrines. Hence, there is a need for connectedness among individuals in the society, which will ensure better outcome that when one is performing on his or her own. Citizens are, therefore, portrayed as interdependent in such a way that one citizen action might end up affecting others in a positive or a negatively. Thus, it is every member of the social responsibility to ensure that he or she makes choices that are wise to avoid hurting others. In addition, they should clarify their commitments, have values such as self-control and respect and examine carefully whether their actions are directed toward positive results. When engaging in communal activities people have a chance of working together and solving controversies among themselves and reaching a common goal. Citizenship gives people an opportunity to interact and form a positive relationship with other members of the society.
Key Factors in Citizenship
There are several key factors to consider while engaging in citizenship. Despite the fact that citizenship includes working together with fellow citizens, one should be able to clearly understand factors such as the history of his or her community, social capital and empowerment, and privilege. Social capital involves citizens working together with aims of providing positive results for their community such as safer environment for schooling, practicing religious beliefs, providing quality healthcare and giving effective economic and governmental developments. Societies with social capital have members who work in harmony, peace and also trust one another. In addition, community history awareness helps the member in making informed decisions and in understanding the relationship among the individuals as well as understanding the dynamics in the community. One can know about the history of his or her community through; social media, participating in discussions and reading newspapers. Finally, it is very important for a citizen to understand that some members of the community feel empowered than others. One should keep in mind that, despite the fact that some members might feel superior to others, they all have the responsibly in ensuring a healthy relationship and interaction among themselves. In this case, each individual has the ability to shape their future and that of others as well as engaging actively in building their community.
Forms of Citizen Participation
Forms of citizen participation can be looked at in different categories. Citizen participation or activism refers to the extent to which an individual engages in both personal and social activities toward changing the society. Following the fact that every member of the society has a contribution toward the development of it through various activities, it is also a fact to say that not everyone contributes equally. Different people have different capabilities and have a distinctive level of performance and participation. One can say that youths in the society have a high level of performance compared to the aged in that particular society. People have a different way of giving back to the society, that is, as an individual, group, society, associations, and organizations. Researches show that people tend to show better results when they work together with others, for instance in cases where people are fighting for their rights or boycotting certain products.
Technology and Digital Citizenship
Technology has brought significant change in the modern society, thus, creating digital citizenship. Starting from how people interact with one another, the way of doing things, communication, infrastructure as well as the relationships among members of the society. Social media, in particular, have brought a great change in how people engage and also influence the behavior of the majority of the users. People tend to consult and seek information from online forums concerning various aspects of their lives. Technology has brought both positive and negative implication to the society. Young people, for instance, are the majority of users of the social media, where they can learn things that can help them behave and interact with others in a positive way. On the other hand, social media can play a major role in misleading the youths in ways such as downloading and watching immoral contents from the internet, it can also promote crimes and laziness where most people spend most of their time glued to their gadgets thus, lowering the level of their performance. Such cases play a major part in lowering down the level of performance of citizens in their societies.
Unity and Accountability in the Community
Conclusively, everyone is held accountable to the community, each person should participate in the group or community and also he or she should make other people feel welcome in their society by treating them in the right way. All members of the society play a significant role and their voices should be heard despite their gender, age, race or social class, this is because they are all interdependent and no one can form a community on his or her own. The unity of the community is what helps in making significant development. A community might fail to develop in a great way when some of the people in the community feel alienated or discriminated against by others. Therefore, every member has a defined duty in ensuring that he or she is putting into consideration the rights of other members of the society, failure to which might result to war and violence among them, disruption of peace and a healthy relationship.
