The role of families in combating climate change

Lalit Garg

(The writer can be reached at lalitgarg11@gmail.com)

International Day of Families is celebrated as an annual occasion on May 15 to celebrate the importance of families and their role in society. The United Nations adopted it as a resolution in 1994 to raise awareness of the importance of families, highlight the challenges they face, promote the ideals of solidarity, and demonstrate efforts that strengthen family units around the world.

This year we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the International Day of Families, the theme of which is Families and Climate Change. Its goal is to raise awareness of the effects of climate change on families and encourage them to take action to reduce these impacts. Family and community initiatives aim to raise awareness about the threats to the environment and life from climate change and to clean up the environment by providing education, information access, training, and community participation.
The family is the smallest unit in the animal world and social organization. It is difficult to even imagine running a human society in the absence of a family, we have understood this very well during the Corona crisis.

Every person is able to make his life journey pleasant, prosperous, and development-oriented only by being a member of a family. Its existence cannot be thought of apart from it. Our culture and civilisation have been refining themselves by going through many changes, but there has been no impact on the existence of family institutions. They may have been created or broken, but their existence cannot be denied. Its form changed and its values changed, but its existence cannot be questioned. No matter how much modern ideology we are growing up in, in the end we experience satisfaction, fullness, and meaning of life only by converting our relations into a family by linking them with the institution of marriage.

The importance of family is not only in India but everywhere in the world. That is why International Family Day is celebrated with the aim of strengthening family institutions. The main objective of this day is to make the youth aware of the family so that they do not get away from their families in the flow of so-called modernity.

The family institution continues to exist despite facing many struggles and changes. If we talk about old eras or even on the basis of religious beliefs, then, like today, there used to be disintegration of families earlier too. But in modern society, disintegration of the family has become a common thing. In such a situation, International Family Day is celebrated with the mission and vision that families should not break. By living among the family, you remain stress-free and happy, and you also do not become a victim of loneliness or depression. The concept of society is incomplete without family, and to create a family, it is very important for people to live together and connect.

There are two types of families: one is a nuclear family, and the other is a joint family. Father, mother, and children live in a nuclear family. In a joint family, father-mother, children, grandparents, uncle, aunt, elder father, elder mother, aunt, etc. The first celebration of this day was announced by the United States of America on May 15, 1994. This day holds great importance for the people who are suffering the tragedy of the breakdown and disintegration of joint families. In fact, the unique identity of human civilisation is the joint family, and wherever it is, there is heaven. Old age shudders due to the actions of family members who destroy the importance of relationships, love, and so-called modernist thinking. While the disintegration of joint families and the emergence of the nuclear family have caused pain to the elderly, they have also deprived children of many events. The power to bear sorrow and endure hardships that is seen in joint families is not found in those who live alone. In today’s modern era, in view of rising inflation and increasing needs, joint families can be called the need of the hour.

India is a country of villages, a country of families; perhaps this is the reason that, despite not wanting to, we have emerged as the world’s largest population nation, and perhaps this is the reason that, despite the challenges arising from population pressure, we, as a ‘family’, did not feel the need to formulate population policy. A part of the land surrounded by walls made of brick, stone, and lime is called a household, with which ‘I’ and ‘me’ are associated. The organisational unit of relationships committed to values is each member of that household. The happiness and sorrow of every member touch each other’s hearts. The mind is affected by feelings of love.

Where the sun rises every morning in the struggle for food, clothing, shelter, education, and proper medical care, and every evening the family comes and stays at home carrying the burden of half-fulfilled worries, Sometimes profit, sometimes loss, sometimes happiness, sometimes sadness, sometimes coincidence, sometimes separation—and the cycle of life moves between these dualistic situations. There is a struggle between luck and effort. Every effort of a man is to create a ‘home and family’. In the true sense, home and family are the places where life values like affection, harmony, cooperation, organisation, sharing of joys and sorrows, and acceptance of lessons in everything are lived. Where there is complete freedom to tolerate and understand everyone. There is creative freedom with discipline, the right to make decisions with integrity, and a childhood nurtured in good values. Youth is lived by a relative lifestyle. Old age remains tolerant and balanced while sharing the experiences lived by everyone. Such a family definitely becomes a temple of worship.

Family is like a resource. Then what is the reason that if we look into the atmosphere of any family today, we will see the shadows of sorrow, worry, discord, jealousy, hatred, partiality, dispute, opposition, and rebellion moving around? There would be a feeling of alienation even among our own people. A difference of opinion will lead to discord. Faith will descend into doubt. In such a crowd of untold tensions, man yearns for a moment of happiness. No one tries to tolerate or understand anyone. Because in that family, within the scope of its own existence, the changing peripheries of objectives, ideals, expectations, faith, and belief go astray, obliterating the centre. To control this fragmentation and disintegration, we launched the “Sukhi Pariwar Abhiyan” under the leadership of Gani Rajendra Vijayji, through which extensive initiatives are being taken to strengthen the family institution.

The concept of a nuclear family is not yet widespread in India. Even today, there are many families in India whose generations live together and support each other at every step. But the situation is gradually worsening in metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai. It is expected that soon the importance of a joint family will start increasing again in society, and awareness will spread among people that they should live together in a family, which has many benefits. This step and resolution of life taken in the name of human relationships and family tradition will be a unique gift to the family in welcoming tomorrow.