SMILER’s from IIT, in collaboration with NSS took up the initiative of giving their rural internship presentation at 2LT2 in IIT. The session was being moderated by Abishek and Anurag. It started with an activity wherein, the audience was divided into pairs and one member of each pair was told to hold the index finger of other member and the latter had to free their finger. Everybody was then asked that how did they free their fingers and spontaneous came the reply from all that they forcefully pulled their finger out from the grip. But no one had requested the other member to leave their finger. So the point that was stressed here was thinking out of the box and looking at the alternate and sustainable ways to deal with things.

The audience was asked that why do they feel volunteering is important?
Following were some of the responses:-

Leadership quality enhances.
To be heard by the larger society.
To help other’s and not just looking at our own personal benefits.
Volunteering is a two-way learning process.

There was a brief discussion on the last two contradictory statements and finally the conclusion that the audience arrived upon was that volunteering is not just giving something to society without any personal benefits but the learning that unfolds and the skills/qualities that enrich the volunteer there-on help in his/her personality development.

Then the question was thrown to the students that how does volunteering help us and following were the responses:-

Provides Satisfaction.
Helps in networking.
Personality development.
Communication skills are enhanced.
‘Job karke hum engineer ban sakte hain, insaan nahi’
Also one of the students said that rural people are not aware about the schemes meant for them and neither do they have an access to them. So, volunteering is about reaching to these lesser privileged people and in his words – ‘kisi ko to pehla kadam lena padega’.
People have a lot of expectations from IIT’ians- that they are educated, they are the cream and would help the masses.

Abhishek and Anurag then gave a brief introduction of Pravah and the SMILE program of it. And also shared their rural internship experiences:-

Abishek Chaudhary: who went to SECMOL, Ladakh shared that his main task there was to teach students. He also threw light on the fact that in 1990, the pass percentage was just 5-10% in the village where he had gone and how SECMOL took up the initiative of “Operation New hook” of improving upon the educational status of the village. He also said that the internship was the most cherishable period in his life.

Anurag: who had gone to Sabuj Sangha, Sunderbans for his internship shared that he chose the organisation because it works on a lot of issues and for the holistic development of people. He gave a brief introduction about the organisation, where he interned and threw light on the Cyclone AILA disaster that had struck the coastal areas of West Bengal on 25th May, 2009. He emphasised on the hostility, warmth and kindness of people and the very fact that despite being poor, they are very welcoming and gracious.
He concluded with his learnings- that he learnt to get out of his comfort zone, learnt professionalism as he had to finish the tasks assigned to him in time and to have fun to the optimal level.

Abishek Surana: who went to Satpuda foundation in Maharashtra, shared his experiences of living without electricity for 1 month and going to jungle for the first time. He also stressed on the fact that everything has to reach the bottom too and has to be sustainable like if electricity is not reaching to all, then what is the use of having it. It leads to more disparity and urban- rural divide.

Other SMILER’s also shared their experiences of their rural internships.
There were a few questions by the students:

Who made the arrangements for you to stay in the rural areas?
How was the reaction of people regarding the work you did?
Why doesn’t scheme reach to the masses?
What change did you bring there?

Response: Political motives and corruption are so deeply imbibed in our country that leads to deliberate lack of resources to the people and deliberately keeping them away from the resources. To bring about change in a month is very difficult but the very fact that we are sharing our learnings and screening movies on social issues conveys the fact that we can bring in some change somewhere. And more importantly if we change even our own selves is an achievement.


Moderators also shared about the changes in themselves:

Our problems suddenly seemed very small in front of their’s.
Have become more self aware.
Filled with optimism.
Knowledge about many issues has enhanced.

The session was concluded with the following lines and then the video, which summarised the whole process of rural internship experience:

Peel life to see the real life,

Expand your boundaries.

Keep :)ing

SMILE'rs :)