Should all students be required to perform Community Service?

( by Sumi Mohan)

Image By:- Team LDL

"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest to you" 

- Mother Teresa

            Community service is an ethical job assigned to every individual of the nation but only a few among them actually perform such duties. The feeling of helping others should be injected in a person right from his childhood only then he can be able to more empathetic towards others. Schools and colleges should also focus on giving not only theoretical knowledge of moral values but also try to give them real engagement in real-life events and programs also. As students are those phases of life where they learn how to grow socially and mentally for competence and also their mental ability is equipped with more than 60% of social behaviour and acceptance. A student learns. They should be acknowledged with their rights towards society.

"The greatest wealth and strength of any nation is its youth."

- Anonymous

            The students must be aware of the issues happening in the society. They should feel responsible for bringing change in the society. As an Indian student, we have the privilege of having a group of people who are coming from different backgrounds as India has a dynamic socio-cultural environment that even the neighbours differ from each other in every possible sense. With such a dynamic group student can do wonders as there would be a great brainstorming session.

A socially active student will become an asset for the future. Students are young at heart and can give creative solutions to the problems. We have witnessed several initiatives by the students across the globe on various social issues such as illiteracy, poverty, menstrual hygiene, etc. 

What could be done for engaging more students in community service?

1. Conducting seminars and workshops which will increase the student's willingness to work for the society.
2.  Involving their presence in the programs related to the betterment of society.
3.  Making them aware of the problems floating in the society and also ask them suggestions to remove them.
4.  Take baby steps at the beginning.

Example:- Start a student group at your own school or college.

Various programs that could be started at school or college level are:

1. Plant for the future: This initiative is to plant more trees to protect our environment.
2. Food is the necessity: In this, the students can provide meals to the people in slums and the migrant workers.
3. Health Camps: Students can collaborate with various medical institutes and provide medical check-up camps.
4. Education: Converting an illiterate into literate can result positively.
5. LGBT Community: Creating awareness about the LGBT community and for their equal rights.
6. Menstrual Hygiene

 

 I found one of the student NGOs of New England which works for spreading awareness on HIV-AIDS, talking about which is still a taboo in our Indian culture. We should promote our Indian students to be open up whenever they think they should. And this could only be done when they start to engage themselves in more societal programs.

During this Covid-19 pandemic, we also saw various students and youngsters who took the initiative and provided food and water to people living on the streets and to the migrating workers.

• The first thing a student volunteer can do is to educate. Education becomes the key ingredient of every individual's life. Education is something that doubles when we share.

And that is what Light de Literacy is doing from the past 8 years. It is an NGO that works for the unprivileged sections of the society. We provide free education to the underprivileged kids living in slums. We have distributed notebooks and other stationery items to the kids of slum and we are trying to spread the need for education in all directions. We also have admitted around 40 kids to schools and their whole fees are paid by Light de Literacy. We also started the campaign on menstrual hygiene named "SHE FOR SHE" in 2018 and till now we have distributed approximately more than 5000 sanitary napkins and somewhere we have been successful in removing the thought that menstruation is taboo at least among them.

Conclusion

As it guides, helping people has always been a conceptual growth in human nature.

It binds everyone with the belief that if we bring up some factual and truthful moral values in ourselves and around, we will see socialistic involvement in every aspect of our day to day activities, it could be through obliging praise without the hope of praise or reward. This makes us, the students, the young man, women everyone a social network among ourselves. We should indulge our students with moral activities and social awareness programs. They will learn it with togetherness and live with togetherness.

Social Engagement or social service inspired and motivated. The students feel satisfied when they are associated with such programs. They feel that society needs them and they also have duties towards society and being part of such activities right from the student level will definitely help them to create a bright future for them as well as for the nation. We always hear students saying that the system is corrupted but involving themselves in social activities they will find new ways to remove such corruption from the system and they will be able to find new ways to remove such negative practices from the system and nation. They think that they are working for the bright future of the country. They will feel satisfied that at least they have taken a step which will improve the country’s future. It will fill their mind and heart with satisfaction.

Disclaimer:-

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.