Lending a helping hand
Doing your bit for the society has been quite the buzz around teens these days. Besides their regular academic life, teens these days are finding a more meaningful way to spend quality time by volunteering with several NGOs in the city. The idea of giving back to society has appealed to the young generation like never before and every college festival these days have a theme focussing on socially relevant issues.
Divya Aiyer, a final year student of mass media was volunteering with an NGO a month ago during her vacations. “I was working with Oasis, which deals with environmental issues and spreads awareness about environmental causes. It involved a lot of planning activities which required us to go to different schools and spread the awareness,” says Divya who also says that it was an enriching learning experience for her. She loves writing and also wrote a couple of articles, which had environment as the core issue. “The fact that I got so much to learn in return was the most amazing part of it and there was this sense of fulfillment that you are doing your bit for the society,” says Divya who describes every moment of the volunteering as worthwhile.
Colleges like IIT Bombay and St. Xaviers in Mumbai have always incorporated social campaigns in their cultural festivals to spread the buzz around these issues. Anusha Kumar, third year engineering student at IIT Bombay had volunteered for an NGO where she took math and English classes for the underprivileged kids. “I just felt good about the fact that probably I helped someone in someway in whatever minuscule way possible. And it was quite meaningful to spend time with the kids everyday for two hours and pass on your knowledge. One can learn so much from them,” says Anusha whose outlook towards life changed a lot post this stint of her as a volunteer. IIT has also had a blood donation campaign during its cultural festival Mood Indigo. “That too was a good experience and the fact that you an reach out to people in so many different ways was sort of an eye opener,” says Anusha.
Even St. Xaviers has a social theme this year as part of their college festivities — “I have a dream” which included visits to different NGOs. Kile D’souza, one of the organisers of the festival, “At Xaviers we’ve always believed in giving back to the society. We went to an NGO, spent time with the kids there, held some workshops and it was a wonderful experience,” says Kile.
Post new comment