Students and Social Service

Social service is supposed to be the in things in fashion today. However, in a country like India, social service can leave the precincts of fashion and become a very important and long-lasting project. What the real problem with us is that we have not really understood the value of social service. In real essence, social service means serving people who are of no personal utility to us. In India where the poor and underprivileged are so many, social service has great importance, and a very large scope too.

Today we hear of social service or social welfare organisations manned by men and women but we see that most of these organisations are not rendering service at the very grassroots level. It is the task of the Government to look after the welfare of all the people of the country but the government alone can do precious little. To help the Government in this task social service organisations must be mobilised to work hand in hand with the Government, only then a substantial result may be felt on the ground. The bottleneck in the functioning of the welfare organisations is the finances involved in any work so, if Government is there to allot funds and welfare organisations to do the work, we can achieve a lot. In India however, we see Government and social service organisations both working independently of each other so, the ground condition is one of lack of rapport and a haphazard activity. When we see both government and social service organisations working towards the goal of social upliftment, we forget a great force in the country which can be an asset to this and that force is the student community. If this community is mobilised to help the Government and welfare agencies, the task will become easier and the results will be more tangible.

The student community consists of young people who are full of enthusiasm and zeal for whatever work they are given. They have the energy and the mobility which elders lack and, above all they are a mighty force. The students can be mobilised in the spread of literacy, which can be made into a nationwide project. The Government and the social welfare organisations have been trying to do a lot but the achievement is not enough? If the student community joins hands and also participates in the project at least during their vacations, we will get a major active force helping us and the achievement will be tremendous. The students can also help us with our awareness programmes. No matter what the awareness is about whether it is about health hazards, cleanliness drives, AIDS or cancer, we can utilise the services of the young to help us in these magnum projects.

Since the children these days are more alert to their surroundings, they can be used also for mobilising public opinion for any given theme. They can also be used in community projects like helping the villagers in their pace of progress. This will give them a first insight into what India really is, and they will get a sense of achievement by working for their less fortunate brethren. In this way, the stock of the urban student community will also improve by imbibing in them the desire to help others. They will learn that sharing is the best way to progress. Teamwork and assimilation with the rural community will become added qualities infused in the younger generation, and we will have achieved our goals of service with their magnum support.

In the villages, the students can take up massive cleanliness projects and teach the rural people the necessity of keeping clean, which will automatically lead them to better health standards. In doing this they will also develop the thought of the dignity of labour which is sadly lacking in us Indians.

Thus, if we take into confidence, our student community, and share our problems with them, I am sure they have a great potential of helping us out of the wilderness of illiteracy, health hazards etc. We can take examples of students sharing the social service projects in other countries like Russia and China. If those countries can take the help of their students why can’t we think of it? The students are a tremendous force which, if mobilised, can do magic to our forlorn projects. Besides their helping us, they will also feel all the better for it. In the bargain, they will learn a lot, do a lot, and achieve a lot. In this way, while they are still students, they will be joining the bandwagon of social workers and participating effectively in nation-building. Besides all this to gain they will then, not have the time to enter into any nefarious activities of drug pedalling etc. Their time and energy will be rightly and fruitfully channelised and so the nuisance of student unrest will be put to eternal rest.