NSS Special Camp 3-9 January 2017

NSS Special Camp 3-9 January 2017

Day 1 January 3 2017

The NSS special camp for the year 2017 began on a wintry morning with enthusiastic NSS volunteers ready to add a plethora of life changing experiences and exposure into their lives.

The day commenced with a Seven Day workshop on Youth Empowerment by Dr. Manoj Khurana, from The Chinmaya Mission-Yuva Kendra, Jaipur who inspired the volunteers with the feelings of patriotism and brotherhood for fellow citizens. He began with differentiating between emotion and intellect and how Indian culture and spirituality teach us the values of life. Dr. Khurana also conducted a short Quiz on India using an audio-visual presentation. His kind words instilled the motto of 'Transforming ourselves for transforming the nation' in the hearts of the volunteers.

Mr. Dhananjay Tyagi, India's leading karate champion took a brief ice breaking session on the need and importance of self defense for girls. 

The Inaugural ceremony of the special camp began with Saraswati vandana and NSS Song by the volunteers. Dr. Ashok Gupta, the ViceChancellor and Dr. Raakhi Gupta the Registrar of the University along with the Chief Guest Mr. Ashfaq Hussain, District Collector of Dausa enlightened the students with the importance of being independent and empowered women to face the challenges of the  contemporary times.

Ms. Chanda Asani, NSS faculty shared her experience of working in Udwada rural outreach area of SNDT Women’s University, during the making of an audio visual center and the power of advertisements to create insecurities.

The camp participants were then distributed in groups based on the projects they were involved in.

In the post lunch session, a guest lecture on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) 2012 was addressed by Ms. Lakshmi Ashok. She shared the issue of child sexual abuse and sexual harassment of children with the students. She stressed upon identifying the  symptoms, ways to help the victims, child helpline and discussed about the children at risk of abuse.

The next highly captivating session was on Gender and Masculinity issues by Major Meeta Singh, alumnae of AFMC, Pune and Chairperson of Dignity of Girl Child foundation. In her candid and interactive session Ms. Singh illuminated the campers with the origin and ways of perpetuation of patriarchy in Indian society. She also emphasized on the violence associated with stereotypical socialization of boys who are forced to identify themselves as strong and muscular with a macho image and it's disastrous repercussions on the society as a whole. She also apprised the students on the effects of easy accessibility of porn on the minds and behaviour of today's youth and the significance of enforcing and inculcating equality among young children of  both genders.

The campers then were divided in various groups for the nukkad natak training session with, Mr. Mahmood Ali, freelance theater trainer and  instructor.

Day 2 January 4

The day commenced with the workshop of Dr. Manoj Khurana from Chinmaya Mission - Yuva Kendra on Transforming Indians to Transform India. Dr. Khurana carried forward the ideas of Patriotism by differentiating between the terms compromise and sacrifice so that young students develop a strong will power to choose sacrifice rather than petty compromises in their day to day lives. He also gave a formula to achieve transformation within our nation, that is, ACT where A stands for Appreciate the greatness of our country, C stands for be the Change, and T holds for transform. A video on Indian Army with the National Anthem being played in the background filled all eyes with tears of pride and a grit to do something beneficial for the country. The real life story of Naib SubedarBana Singh reinforced the respect for the soldiers, who withstand the pains of minus degrees temperature and work selflessly for the protection of civilians. The silence in the hall spoke of the REAL CHANGE and appreciation in the attitudes of the students.

The self-defense training by Mr. DhananjayTyagi focused on the ways to defend ourselves if someone tries to grab us from the back using elbows, head and hands. He also trained girls about simple ways to save one, if someone directly attacks by grabbing one's neck. Definitely his style of training with doses of humour in between kept the session stimulating till the end. He emphasized upon practicing the methods on a regular basis in order to save oneself in real crisis.

The volunteers boarded the buses according to their groups and projects to be taken up in the community.The buses left for community work in various Bastis and government schools to carry out their projects and raise awareness about illiteracy, environment protection, Swachhta(cleanliness), women empowerment, health and hygiene. The Project undertaken by Group D is health and hygiene so the volunteers initially gathered more students and taught about PANCHTANTRA, i.e. five components of food ( Proteins, vitamins etc.) In order to develop further interest for knowing about causes and effects of bad hygiene, awareness videos on you-tube dealing with the  causes of diarrhoea, need for community sanitation and use of toilets etc were taken up.

Post lunch session was of Ms. Tripti Pandey, Former Director of Rajasthan Tourism, who enlightened the students about the unique, vibrant and colourful culture of the state of Rajasthan. She literally gave a reality check to all when no one in the audience knew all months of the Hindi calendar and famous culture celebrations of the cities of Rajasthan and their relevance. She sang the popular folk songs and even made teachers and students sing which acted like a live celebration of Indian culture.

A Creativity Workshop on Best out of waste was the next activity in which Monika Sharma and Aditi Vyas, two senior students from the Department of Fashion and Textile Technology and Fine Arts respectively demonstrated the making of flowers using waste magazine and tissue papers. They also taught how to make photo frames using empty bottles, glass candle and best use of dry flowers etc. This activity helped NSS volunteers to reuse the available resources to create better objects and not throw them away to add to the clutter and lead to environment pollution.

The day ended with the group discussion, script writing and practice of Nukkads of respective groups under the guidance of Theater Instructor Mr. Mahmood Ali, a Freelance Theatre Expert.

Day 3 January 5, 2017

Dr. Manoj Khurana forged ahead with the second module of “Transforming Indians to Transform India”on 'Emotional Transformation'. He introduced the term Emotional Intelligence with a quote by Swami Vivekananda, "Mastery over emotions and passion is real education" which holds true even today though the irony is that in the materialistic social backdrop today, the number of degrees, diplomas and medals one collects depicts one’s level of  education. "Believe me friends, if you can control your mind you have controlled the world" said Dr. Khurana emphatically. The formula for emotional transformation was an acronym named as PEACE (Pause, Educate yourself, Appreciate, Care, Evolve and not revolve). Happiness, which is the sole purpose of our life can be ensured only when we limit our desires and expectations towards others. An audio-visual with lyrics " andhere kahin jam na jaein , ujaale baat lo" gave an emotional message to not to lose hope even in the darkest of the times and spread happiness all around you. The session ended with the thought of the day, that 

               ‘Don't fall in love but Rise in love’ 

In the second day’s self-defense training session, Mr. Dhananjay Tyagi started with an initial warm-up and  revision of the previous day's skills. He taught about the ways to use one's fingers, palm, elbows and shoulder strength to defend against an attacker.

Thereafter the team members assembled in the back lawns for practicing their respective Nukkad Nataks with their call songs and dialogues.

 After the experiences of  the past three days, it was noticeable that the group members who least interacted with one another before , got the feeling of togetherness and teamwork  due to the nukkad.These  nukkads as part of NSS special camp generated healthy relationship and cordiality among the  volunteers as they got to know their group members more and worked efficiently to ensure a good performance.

Day 4 January 6

During the fourth day session on Intellectual Transformation, Dr. Khurana came up with another formula which was CLEAR (Choice is yours,Love what you do and do what you love, Enquire within, Act from inspiration and Routine practice of four R's: reflect, recognize, remove, replace and rise). He differentiated between the path of good and path of pleasure. The path of pleasure is attractive but not fruitful in the long run and the path of good is what should be sought after in spite of it being filled with hurdles. Success is not the sum total of fulfillment of all desires but it's real meaning is 'striving to reach the goal.' The take home message was simply to have Big goals: Goals which seem next to impossible -  THE SKY IS THE LIMIT!

The next session on the self-defense training by Mr.Tyagi included some more techniques using pen, pepper spray and a cutter.

The volunteers boarded the buses to commute to their respective Community to carry forward their Projects. The community work at the government schools and bastis were rewarding in which the volunteers took up the project with which they were associated. The students took up the projects with the school children and  interacted with them constructively.

The post lunch session was an emotional motivational talk “On accomplishing the Impossible” by Dr. Shailja Juneja, a faculty of The IIS University, who shared her battle and victory over Cancer. For her Cancer was not a DISEASE but a BLESSING, which transformed her as an individual. She told life TRY ME !!!  Instead of WHY ME??? What really helped her fight Cancer was her storehouse of positivity, boldness and mental strength. She was appreciative about the role of her husband and mother-in law to whom she expressed indebtedness for entire life. She said,"Never victimize yourself in any situation come what may". Her way of dealing with such a fatal disease deeply inspired each and every member of the audience.

The second session post lunch was an interactive session with Dr. Rahul Jain IPS, who is currently posted in JDA on “Public Relations with Law Enforcement Agencies” on 6^th January 2017. He threw light on the activities of police and the interaction of police with the public, the law enforcement, functioning of the system, the misuse of laws by the public etc. Scarcity of police officers and lack of infrastructural facilities for the police force were the major hurdles for inefficient working of the system pointed by Dr. Jain. The interaction with a mixed bag of responses ranging from polite acceptance of the dysfunctional working of the police to No Comments responses, Dr. Jain answered all sorts of questions bombarded on to him with patience and elan.

The third session post lunch was that of Mr. Mahmood Ali followed with practice of the nukkad with the group.

Day 5 January 7

The fifth day of the camp commenced with Cultural transformation as a part of “Transforming Indians to Transform India”. Mr. Somesh Bhargava , a jeweller by profession from Chinmaya Mission showed a video of the evolution of man and the story of the Saraswati river of the First Civilization on Earth. All were flabbergasted to know that the first man on Earth was an INDIAN!!! Then came the formula of cultural transformation, that is, ROOTED {Reverence, One family, One country, Tradition, 4E's (Education, Enjoyment, Evolution, Exit) and Dynamic}. The four E's denote the four ashrams of Indian culture. "Success is peace of mind and a peaceful mind is creatively happy”, added Dr. Khurana. This was the end of the 5 Day workshop which had begun with a pledge that 'MY TRANSFORMATION, TRANSFORMS NATION'. It has undoubtedly transformed the students into active patriots who are emotionally and intellectually sound and culturally rooted. The session ended with a token of remembrance presented to the Team by Ms Chanda Asani, Faculty of NSS.

The self defense workshop was the second activity of the day with Mr. Tyagi. He demonstrated some more techniques by pairing the students into groups of two and ways to defend oneself by using legs and elbows etc.

The community work in  the basti was a revision of the previous day's learning. It entailed the use of a blackboard to frame sentences out of the words taught a day before to students in the class. YouTube videos facilitated the grasp of the sentences and made the activity both fascinating and intriguing for the kids. The school students learnt different ways to ask the teacher for going to the washroom etc. Correct body language while entering the class or speaking in front of an audience and gaining Confidence in all interactions were also taught to the students on a one to one basis. Surprisingly the kids didn't know the meaning of their own names, so the volunteers helped the students to know the meaning of their names , which was learning by fun and generated cordiality.

In the post lunch session, Major Neha Bhatnagar, from the Indian Army came to share her experiences of climbing the highest mountain in the world- THE MOUNT EVEREST with the young campers. She not only explained the entire route but also shared some heartwarming tales of her expedition. The mesmerizing moments were the pictures of the scaled Everest from the top of the mountain , the sun and the snow. Talking about difficulties she said, "Obstacles are real but difficulties are only mental." Her message for all of us was- GO OUT THERE AND ACHIEVE!!

The second post lunch session was by Dr.Navneet Sharma from The IIS University on “E-banking,Payment Systems and Security Features”. He threw light upon the security features to keep in mind before using Plastic cards and cash less money.

After a short tea break the third session progressed with the practices of the Nukkad Nataks on the theme of the projects, which was supervised by Mr. Mahmood Ali.

Day 6 January 8

This Special Sunday morning began with a slightly heavy warm up and Training session supervised by Mr. Tyagi. He continued the session with a recap of all techniques learnt so far.

The self defense component of the camp ended by imparting  skills as well as, the much needed confidence for self defence in any case of emergency. Mr Tyagi also  shared  the contact number of the National Crime Branch and proposed to make a group named ICG Karate Club for sharing useful information, techniques etc. on a daily basis.

The NSS volunteers proceeded for Shri Shankar Seva Dham Sansthan at Agra Road, a home for the destitute, dependent and the helpless. The volunteers donated different items like soaps, detergents, shampoos, lotions etc. they had brought for the people living in the institute. The founder of the Seva Dham, Mr. Prahlad Gupta showed the campus and apprised the volunteers about how the deprived individuals reach his ashram or are dropped by others. Fortunately, many residents here have successfully been treated, healed, and sent back to their families. Mr. Gupta and his team of dedicated workers’ have not only given a new life to others but also has inspired the volunteers to carry this baton forward with the NSS motto- Not me but You !!

Another bus full of volunteers visited Manav Kusth Ashram at Galtaji and interacted with the inmates of the Ashram. They also carried articles of daily use for donation, which they gave to the Incharge . The volunteers were taken on a tour of the ashram after which the Incharge addressed them apprising them about the activities of ashram and the infrastructure. The volunteers also assisted the women in cutting the vegetables and cooking. A nukkad natak on Environment sustainability was also staged for them by the NSS volunteers.The programme ended with a vote of thanks proposed by Ms. Astha Pareek, an NSS Group Leader.

The volunteers had a late lunch, wh9ich was followed by the practice and final rehearsal for the nukkads by all the campers.

Day 7- January 9, 2017                       

The last day of the NSS Special Camp began with the preparations for the Valedictory ceremony. All the campers were dressed according to the themes of their Nukkad nataks in colourful kurtis and vibrant makeup which added vigour and hue to the atmosphere in the hall.

 Mr. Naveen Jain IAS, Mission Director, National Health Mission , Rajasthan was the chief guest of the programme. The camp activities of the five groups were showcased through a Power Point Presentations. The students shared their experiences of the community work as well as feelings about the camp as a whole. This was followed by the keynote address by Mr. Naveen Jain, the chief guest who threw light upon his team's efforts in effective combating Female Feoticide and the implementation of the PCPNDT Act in Rajasthan. 

The ceremony progressed with the Nukkad Natak Competition between the groups which aimed to generate awareness about five issues: Literacy, Environmental Conservation, Swachhata, Health & Hygiene and Women Empowerment. The hall echoed with encouragement and applause for all groups equally. The Judges on this occasion were-Ms Babita Madan, Theatre Expert, Dr. Radha Kashyap from the Department of Fashion and Textiles and Dr. Nisha Yadav, Controller of Examination, The IIS University, Jaipur

Group 1 was declared the winner

Group 3 as the 1st Runner up

Group 5 as the 3rd Runner up

The winners along with other two joined for the group photographs.

The programme ended with an interactive talk by Dr. Indu Ravi , Regional Head IGNOU. She apprised the students about the various courses, fee structure, examinations, and study centres of IGNOU and advantages of pursuing Certificate and Diploma courses from the university along with regular courses.

The NSS Special camp came to an end with a vote of thanks by Ms. Deepshikha Parashar, NSS Programme Officer, Unit II. It was viewed by some students as a  a patriotic pilgrimage which introduced the two extremes traits of the country: one related to patriotism and love for the country and the other related to service to the deprived and disadvantaged community and our role of the youth in both. This camp gave experiences to the volunteers in both the fields to cherish for life time , making them strong and self confident citizens of India.