Family Bonds Nurture Community Spirit

The family is the smallest unit in a community. It is also the child's first school for learning values like sharing, caring and compassion. The family provides a secure setting where citizens of the future are molded to become responsible members of the community. This makes the family an important unit of the community, a place where the child learns human values and feels rooted.

The family is the smallest unit in a community. It is also the child's first school for learning values like sharing, caring and compassion. The family provides a secure setting where citizens of the future are molded to become responsible members of the community. This makes the family an important unit of the community, a place where the child learns human values and feels rooted.

The community spirit that is so important to keeping societies together is taught in the family. Families are increasingly becoming small, nuclear units. Migrations and other factors have led to the break up of the extended family system that once held together traditional communities. There was a time when an entire village or locality in a town would be inhabited by members of the same family, and everybody was everybody else's cousin, aunt, brother, uncle or grandparent.

Migrations and economic realities have increased the physical distance between members of the extended family, and resulted in the fragmentation of close knit communities that were once the backbone of any society. Young people feel increasingly alienated in a setup without community bonding. Their parents may not be able to spend quality time with them, or help them through various problems of growing up, and the community may not extend the help needed.

Families are the crucial element of a community. An extended family is a precursor to the larger social unit, society. Being part of an extended family teaches young people the importance of sharing and giving. It helps them adapt better to the world at large. If the family has some trouble, then all members of the extended family chip in to help. Most importantly, the extended family absorbs shocks of death, divorce, illness, unemployment and other rampant problems facing families, giving children a safe, secure environment to grow in. This leads children to become better citizens who are able to fit in well in society and make important contributions to the community.