Making campuses relevant to community

The idea of involving students in community service dates back to the Gandhian era. Over the decades, it has materialised in the form of the NSS (National Service Scheme) which albeit voluntary is still going strong in colleges. While a student member of the NSS is required to put in 120 hours every year towards its activities, this is often surpassed.

Rupesh Maurya, a SYBSc student who is a member of the NSS club at Thakur College in Kandivli shares, "Like any other NSS member, in the last two years I have put in around 800 hours of my time in NSS activities. Beyond making me socially active; they have instilled in me the confidence and leadership skills I lacked in the past."

The activities that Maurya refers to range from awareness campaigns and street plays on topics like global warming and AIDS, to adoption of villages for intensive development work, plantation drives, immunisation drives, blood donation camps.  The NSS volunteers also go through intensive disaster management training programmes to perform relief work during floods and other calamities.

"I initially joined the NSS to get the 10 extra marks that are given to volunteers every academic year. But then eventually I got involved in the work our NSS unit was doing in the advasi padas of Vasai and Malad. It was not late that I started living the NSS motto of 'Not me But you'," shares Deep Kakade from Sathaye College. For the last two years Kakade has been taking part in group discussions on current issues, performing street plays in AIDS ridden areas like Kamatipura, celebrating festivals like Diwali and Ganpati with leprosy patients in hospital in Vasai. Students like Kakade have earned their college the best NSS unit award for the last three years.

As per the NSS mandate, every volunteer has to participate in the seven day annual special camp which usually involves a village outreach programme. Via this several underdeveloped villages have totally transformed in areas of healthcare facilities, general awareness, education, rain water harvesting, planting of trees. Students not only live with the villagers during this annual camp but also visit them 2-4 times every month.

During these they conduct surveys to track their needs and map activities to help them explore self employment options and better their lives. "We perform street plays on topics like the importance of education, anti dowry, AIDS awareness," says Hemlata Tewari, NSS volunteer, Sathaye College. Tewari also informs of their monthly visits to the Industrial Home for Blind Women at Andheri and Sneha Sadan an orphanage.

The most active of NSS students also get to represent the country and cross borders via university/ state and national level camps. Mansi Sharma, an ex student of the Thakur College NSS unit reminisces taking part in the Republic Day Parade at Rajpat, New Delhi and the cultural exchange with student representatives from the other states. "Out of the two crore NSS volunteers spread all over India only 160 get selected for the parade. After the selection, we have to go through a rigorous one and half month of training focused on national integration and patriotism," recalls Sharma.

Through the NSS, Sharma has also represented India at the Commonwealth youth programme in 2005 held in Pakistan. "Meeting with 18-32 year olds who shared views similar to ours made me realise that what is projected by the media is limited to the government level; but at the grassroots people are just the same," she says. Thakur College is the first college in the city to start an ex NSS students cell where alumni can support the current volunteers and contribute in a better way.

"It's my way of giving back to the nation," says Ralph D'souza, a FYBSc student from KC College NSS unit. "Since 2004, the NSS movement has really picked up in our college.  With around 300 volunteers we have done work in a tribal village Karwale 70km from Mumbai. We have also taught children through NGO's like Door Step and Salaam Balak," he informs. At Karwale, the students have constructed sanitary facilities, distributed clothes and taught the villagers to make hand crafted items. They have also cleared the local pond and planted horticultural plants to help the villagers. "We have opened a library and taught several children in the village basic reading, writing and maths," he shares.

The most commendable effort was made by the KCites in their vacations last year. "The students learned Marathi and communicated with the villagers, convincing them to undergo the free eye checkups organised in the village. They then dispelled their fears regarding the necessary cataract treatment and brought them for free operations to the Bombay City Eye Institute and Research Centre."