Happy Social Work Day in the Dominican Republic.

Last 16th of March was the International Social Work day, but not in the Dominican Republic.

In our half of island we celebrate the Social Work day on the 18th of October, why, I still don´t know, but I know who to ask for getting that answer.

The fact that the date is different does not surprise me, since the beginning of the history of Social Work in the Dominican Rep, back in the early 1960´s when the first school of Social Work was opened in the north of the country, our local context and circumstances also started. Following international tendencies, Latin-American flows and ideas, rejecting some others in the name of better ideologies, against the imperialism and on favor of the people and overall fighting to create our own lines of thought, many situations and conditions were born and took place, creating the complex and mix panorama of the Social Work in the Dominican Republic of nowadays.

After a relatively long hibernation period in the development of the Social Work as a career/profession in the Dominican, on the last 7 years some important sparks have re-started the profession´s fire. The call in these days is to join and support the different initiatives at the base of the Social Work life, in academic sphere, professional association, practice and field of work spheres.

I´ll get the reason why we have a different day for celebrating the profession of social development, but anyhow, the 16th of March or the 18th of October, we social workers should not forget to express to the society, how we are, where we are and all that we are doing.

I also, personally, will work to do something significant this coming (a few months from now, but coming anyway) October, to celebrate the day of my profession. I´m also sure that I´ll find some colleagues to do it.

I´ll let you know about it…