“Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.” These words by Erwin Rommel bring out the essence of the National Award won by Kishinchand Chellaram College of Mumbai this year for the astounding work done by the volunteers and the leaders of their NSS unit.
The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, on September 24, felicitated 41 people with the prestigious NSS awards in recognition of their exemplary and commendable social service. K.C. College was bestowed with two awards for being the ‘Best NSS Unit’, and ‘Programme Officer of the Unit’ was awarded to Dr Satish S Kolte for his exemplary leadership and immeasurable contribution to the society.
“It is indeed a proud moment, for the college to be bestowed with this prestigious award. It is pure perseverance and the sense of dedication that the unit members had for the society which led to history in making,” said Dr Satish S Kolte. “This would not have been possible without the support of our ex-volunteers, former and current Principal and other well-wishers like Dr Niranjan Hiranandani and Mrs Suman Tulsiyani,” he added.
K.C. NSS unit, with 300 volunteers under the staunch leadership of their former and current Principal, Ms. Manju Nichani and Dr. Hemlata Bagla respectively, the NSS Programme Officer Dr. Satish Kolte, senior teachers and the HSNC Board have had noteworthy accomplishments both in the urban areas and their adopted village Saphale, which is 70 km away from the college.
Under the ‘Dattak Gaon Yojana’ they made this village ‘Open Defecation Free’ by constructing 119 toilets with the help of their student volunteers which also serves the mission of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan. The students also started creating awareness about literacy by building a community center in the village and distributing reading and writing materials. Among other initiatives, they have also helped the villagers set up a farmers’ market, set up sewing machines, a manufacturing unit for making Chilli powder and trained local women to make different utility artefacts and conducted health check-up camps.
At the college, district and national level, they have been actively organising and helping to organise workshops concerning HIV/AIDS awareness, on the importance of platelet donation, gender sensitisation and personality development of the youth, blood donation, and other health check-up camps.
“It was a very proud moment for all of us. Finally, after waiting for so many years, the hard work of the previous batches and volunteers of 2017-2018 has paid off and our dream came true,” reiterated Pritam Maji, a volunteer from the 2017 batch.
The K.C. NSS Unit is currently working on ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan’ by which they are focusing on the adoption of five villages under district Palghar, thereby shedding light on the NSS Motto ‘Not Me But You.’