Civic Behavior

CIMG0929The key to making a habitation safe is civic behavior of citizen. Civic behavior of a citizen develops with a sense of belongingness to the habitation and the neighborhood.  While early child hood experiences and training play an important role in developing civic attitudes, the life exposure and experience  between adolescence and adulthood is also crucial in determining civic behavior, and more significantly integrating individuals into communities and developing a sense of belongingness, is the key for any society.

The sense of belongingness grows with responsibility and sense of ownership of citizen, and commonly it comes when one gets access to dignified living, having space or home of their own, growing business, decent employment, and a happy family with children. The process of accomplishing these mile stones enables individual to realize their personal needs, common interest and social responsibilities. These make people to gradually take active parts in selecting a stable government, taking part in political processes, managing administration with perspectives, paying timely taxes, adhering laws, showing respect to national heritage and infrastructure, taking part in community actions, and most significantly caring and contributing moral responsibilities towards building a safer habitation and safer society.

civic-behavior2Therefore, the societies that care for overall quality of life of its citizen also see their active participation in development processes and cooperation in managing national resources and mitigating its various related risks. The countries like-Cuba and Bhutan, who have adapted a comprehensive social growth in place of visor industrial progress, have been able to groom the citizen who is active participants in the governance and active in various forms of community and social associations.

In many other parts of the world, we see the civic sense being forced with punitive laws. Such arrangement has often resulted in simmering discontentment for a prolonged period of time and occasionally erupting violent backlash from the citizen. The other scenario is the total disregard to rules, systems and civic responsibilities where citizen believe in callous persuasion of individual, family and collective objectives at the cost of not achieving common goals and societal norms.

These behavioral trends are particularly glaring in many South Asian countries where the citizen are yet to identify themselves with the ruling establishments, and it’s related rules and regulations, that the establishments have borrowed from the past.

Civic behavior holds the key for creating safer societies and habitations and ensuring safety, peace, economic growth and community resilience in the event of crisis situations. In one hand an improved civic behavior of citizen can be ensured and sustained with inclusive growth, people centered policy, participatory governance, pro-people economic development, and a greater social responsibility, on the other hand it can come through  individual grooming, inspirational trainings, exclusive mentoring, personal motivation and parental care, these must starts from early childhood both in schools and in the families, enabling a child to grow as a responsible citizen with right kind of civic behavior towards his or her family, community and society at large.

Key Message: Civic behavior is the key to “sustained economic growth” and “developing resilience” to all kind of natural and human induced risks!!!!!!!!



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