Celebrating social workers
She believes that social work is not a job but rather a calling where she can practice her values for life. However, it does come with its challenges.
Social workers are essential to the community’s well-being. This is also the theme for Social Work Month 2021. Social worker at Kingsburgh Child and Family Welfare, Sandra Govender, has proven to be a backbone of the community where she has worked for the past 25 years. She qualified as a social worker in 1995 through Unisa and while she initially planned to be a teacher, she believes that she was destined to serve the community.
“I’ve been with welfare for 25 years. It’s a long time, but I’ve stuck it out. I love working in this community. When I first started studying I had a lecturer who would always tell us that social work is the art of listening and science of hope. We want to bring hope to people by enabling them to change their circumstances by helping them navigate through life and its challenges. The most rewarding aspect is when you see children and families that you’ve journeyed with for a year or two turning into productive adults. Some of them come back and say thank you and give back to the community and welfare. When my oldest foster child had her own family she came back every December to offer help. It is rewarding to see people reach a stage in their lives where they can fly.”
She believes that social work is not a job but rather a calling where she can practice her values for life. However, it does come with its challenges.
“It was all in God’s plan although some days are really difficult. You don’t have a magic wand to help everyone change their lives. When I started I had this mentality that my job is to fix everyone and everything. And over the years I realised that I can’t solve every problem, I can enable people with tools and resources and they have to live their lives. It was difficult because I had a survivor mentality especially when you try your hardest but things don’t work out the way they should have.”
Sandra will celebrate her 25th year at the welfare on Thursday, 1 April and her love for both the community and the organisation remains a constant.
“I just love working with the community and the management of the welfare, it just suited my lifestyle. Interacting with people brings me so much joy. The organisation and community have helped me grow as a social worker and a person. It’s such a privilege to journey with people. Over the years, the organisation has progressed greatly. Some people became dependent on us while some just used us as a stepping stone. There’s also a stigma attached to being a social worker where people think that we take children away from their families. People have always been fearful of that and we are trying to change that mindset. It has always been about one-to-one counselling. We have put in a lot of programmes in place where we do group and community work and capacity building. There are no typical days, its a myriad of different cases that we deal with on a daily basis.”
Sandra is married to Preggie, who is a former social worker and believes that they balance each other out. They have two children together. She enjoys reading, gardening and loves interacting with people.
“Sometimes social workers are just a catalyst to make a change in a life and sometimes we’re just here to listen.”
ALSO READ: Welfare honours and celebrates social workers
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