Notes from Goa
Giving Back to Society
By Sherin Kurian (’04 C6)
Abhigyan-“Knowledge for all”
15th August 2005- a memorable day for BITSians of Goa. Dr.T.C.Goel (Director, BITS, Pilani - Goa Campus) proposed the idea of starting a Literacy Drive on campus while delivering the Independence day message. This was an opportunity to serve the society and the faculty and students of BITS Goa put in their best efforts to get the program up and running. The program aimed at teaching construction workers and their children, the mess staff, and the housekeeping staff. With an initial fund of Rs. 5000/- donated by the Director himself, the program commenced.
Blood Donation Camp at BITS Pilani – Goa Campus
Once the funding was in place, the next task involved acquiring books and stationery for the students. These included story books, text books, exercise books, pens and pencils. A course handout was designed to outline the topics to be covered. Since most of them were new to learning, we started with alphabets in English, Hindi and Kannada according to their preference. Math and spoken English were also included in the syllabus. In a week, everything was ready and the small school at BITS marked its beginning. The venue of the program was decided to be the same classroom where the students of BITS attended their classes and it continues to be so even today. A group of sixty five showed up for the first class, which included adults as well as children in the age group of 3 to 12. The classes commenced with mixed feelings among the new students - some were scared, some were embarrassed, and yet another section was restless showing their discomfort. To start learning at the age of 45 is indeed a difficult task!
The teachers to these knowledge aspirants are a set of enthusiastic students of the campus who feel the necessity for imparting knowledge to the underprivileged. I, too, am one among the teaching volunteers at Abhigyan and extremely proud to be so. It was a new experience to most of us since we have never seen people who don’t even know to hold a pen! Also an eye opener to understand the amount of patience each of our teachers has with us. Kudos to teachers all around the world!
The last two years have seen Abhigyaan growing and at times breathing hard to hold the spirits of learners high. New plans are being made to take it to a higher level so that BITSians will continue to have an opportunity to give back to the society.
AASRA: a platform for social service
Since its inception, AASRA, a platform for social service in BITS Pilani, Goa Campus has organized many programs for community welfare.
Blood Donation Camp
Every year, AASRA, along with Goa Medical College Blood Bank (in association with Blood Transfusion Council in Goa) holds a blood donation camp at the Institute. The camp is being held at the campus for the past threes years and BITS Goa has had the rare achievement of being the highest blood donor among educational institutions in Goa on October 2006 and the highest blood donor in Goa as a whole in October 2007.
Literacy drive at the BITS Pilani – Goa campus.
Faculty and students collaborate to teach construction workers,
the mess and the housekeeping staff and their children.
Cleanliness Drive
"Cleanliness leads to Godliness" is a famous quote. Keeping this in mind, AASRA has taken the initiative of a campus cleaning drive at the Institute. Once every semester, the program is conducted to create awareness among the students to keep the surroundings clean.
"Save electricity & water, reduce wastage of food": is the new motto set by AASRA.
The word is spread among the students with posters and presentations. Recently, AASRA expanded the cleanliness drive to outside the campus. Old clothes were collected from students and faculty members and were given to "Little Heavens"- an orphanage located near the campus. Another activity taken up by AASRA involved the collection of old newspapers from the library and the hostel common rooms and giving it to "People for Animals".
On 2nd October 2007, AASRA was brought under NIRMAAN, an NGO based in Hyderabad. Discussions are being held to adopt two schools (one primary and one high school).
Ultimately, the worth of a human being is determined not by what he gets from the rest of the world, but what he gives back to them. The tag of being a BITSian is not just about what we can get out of it in terms of powerful posts and heavy paychecks, but also about how we can show our real worth, by helping the not so fortunate ones among us.
