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The CNMI’s social services organizations
The economic recession that has kept the Commonwealth in its tight grip for over a decade now has been a great leveler in terms of the misery it inflicts on everyone. Everyone is suffering, everyone is depressed, everyone is counting pennies and dimes and foregoing necessities at a rate unheard of since the halcyon days of the ’80s.
It is, however, quite unfortunate that some people are suffering more than others, their misery that much more intense when compared to your average folk. Their hardship, more often than not, gets compounded because these are the people who inevitably fall through the cracks, their desperate plight unnoticed or ignored as other people choose to look the other way and focus on their own problems. It’s not that people are callous or cold-hearted; it’s just that, in times of want, human nature is what it is-it seeks self-preservation first as a coping mechanism.
That is why the Saipan Tribune has chosen to honor as its Persons of the Year for 2011 three service organizations whose primary purpose is to look out for the least among us, to provide that safety net that would catch these people when they fall through the cracks and give them a dignified way to get back on their feet. This year’s Persons of the Year honor goes to the CNMI’s three primary service organizations: the Karidat Social Services, American Red Cross- NMI Chapter, and the CNMI Salvation Army. For these groups, what they do is not a job-it is service to humanity and we are that much more fortunate and blessed that they will be there for us when we need that simplest yet most profound of things-a helping hand.
