The average of three years spent in college generally turns out to be a memorable period of an individual’s life.
This is the time when lessons in life’s values and ideals are learnt, bonds of friendships forged, long lasting relationships developed. This is the time in a person’s life when energy and enthusiasm, imagination, hopes and dreams are at their peak; time when the youth feel it is so easy to move mountains, reach for the moon and stars, plumb the oceans’ unfathomable depths.
It therefore boils down to the fact that if this vast fund of energy can be properly harnessed; many a wonderful thing can be achieved, for the benefit of the general public.
Even the students themselves are likely to be aware of the unbounded energy and the tremendous potential, which they possess. It is highly advisable, therefore, to channelise this energy to some kind of constructive work instead of frittering it away in pursuit of trivia.
The students could take up activities, which are interesting, full of fun and yet likely to prove useful in the long run. A majority of such activities require zero investment, and incase they do, the amount could collect through fund-raising. To begin with, groups of students could get together and advocate the use of bags/purses and shoes made out of anything but leather. Beginning with their own college such a campaign could gain momentum in other colleges as well as neighbourhoods of their homes.
True not everybody is expected to cooperate, but a substantial number of people are sure to be persuaded. Another useful thing would be to organise cleanliness campaigns in the college and /or residential neighbourhoods. The students could pick up brooms, brushes and baskets and work at removing the garbage/litter. This would indeed be a valuable service to the entire community. There are several things, which female students could undertake in order to help the womenfolk, especially housewives and slum dwellers. Such women could be imparted information regarding hygiene, nutrition, childcare, health, and family planning etc. In addition sponsored walks and marathons could be organised to highlight certain issues eg. pollution, ecological crisis, cruelty to animals, nuclear disarmament, communal harmony to name a few.
However not students’ activities are to be directed towards social service alone. There should be occasions of pure, unalloyed fun. For instance the English Honours students could band themselves into dramatic clubs, debating societies, from time to time organise declamation contests, letter writing and essay competitions, poetry and literary circles; the Hindi/Urdu students could organise mushairas, quwaalis, kavi darbaars etc., to celebrate important occasions.
To discover and bring forth budding talents, activities such as painting competitions, photography exhibitions could be organised periodically for talented people to exhibit their creativity. Even prizes could be awarded to further boost the morale of the participants.In the same manner, students of music (both Indian and western) could organize concerts and orchestras by themselves or even team up with musical bands belonging to other colleges.
In their turn, the Home Science students could organize tiny snack parties for their classmates from time to time. In this way they could display their knowledge of the culinary arts. In any of the major cities there are bound to be not one but several professional singers and dancers belonging to diverse schools. Such famous artists could have charity shows organised for them in various colleges from time to time.The proceeds thereof could be handed over to orphanages missionaries and social service organizations.
The college students could also take up door-to-door campaigns against smoking and consumption of other tobacco based products. They could also join hands with the traffic police during the traffic safety weeks teach the public rules of road safety.
Yet another vital project one could embark on is the re-cycling of used paper for further use. This is a very simple and convenient process and helps in cutting down costs of paper. It is also a significant contribution towards ecological conservation.
In fact, there are yet hundreds of other useful things, which the college students can take up on a large scale. The basic pre-requisites are a keen desire to help other fellow human beings and oodles of energy and confidence.
