VIIT students reform Pune village…….Bhagyashree Kulthe
Group of 300 students improved education, sanitation, increased greenery
Group of 300 students improved education, sanitation, increased greenery
A group of 300 students of a city engineering college has enabled Jamgaon, a tiny hamlet of 125 families situated about 40km from Pune, to undergo a metamorphosis of sorts.
The students of Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology (VIIT) have been working tirelessly for the last three years among the villagers to enhance the quality of education, improve hygiene and sanitation etc.
The efforts bore fruit. Sarika Dhok, 19, became the first girl of the village to get admission on merit in VIIT for an engineering course last year, Sunil Ahire became the first teacher of that hamlet to bag the ideal teacher award in September 2010 from the state government and Prateek Ahire became the first student to get a scholarship in Std IV in 2009-10. Not only that, each house of that hamlet now has a toilet, the green cover has increased and road conditions have improved.
And now work is on to install solar lamps, by the students themselves, at the homes of the villagers and on the village roads.
But it was a tough task to make the villagers rise above their religious and social dogmas, local politics and orthodox views and take the path of development.
It all began when the college adopted the village under the Samarth Bharat Abhiyaan of University of Pune and the first batch of National Service Scheme volunteers from VIIT entered the village in 2008.
They started with making a playground for the students of local zilla parishad primary school. They later constructed the first toilet in the school premises for better sanitation. Till then the village just had seven to eight toilets.
Now each household has one, all constructed by the students. It fetched the village the Nirmal Gram status.
The challenge was to bridge the gap. We lived, ate and slept with the villagers, which we continue to do even now. We learnt to communicate in Marathi. The students, dressed in traditional attires, conducted bhajans and dindi to get close to the villagers, said Chetan Koli, NSS volunteer.
Now they are Jamgaons most favourite guests.
Awareness about education and social issues has increased among us due to these students who are now a part of our village, said Chagubai Malusare, a villager.
The local school has classes up to Std IV and its students go to nearby villages for further education. Realising the need to improve the quality of education, the VIIT students started teaching the children. They split into groups and each group visited the village every weekend to teach the children there.
Their teaching is not restricted to the annual 10 days NSS camp. Every weekend, they come to teach the children, said former deputy sarpanch Sopanrao Dhok, who supported the efforts along with the zilla parishad school principal Sunil Ahire.
They also made a road in the village and planted saplings. Guidance of principal AS Tavildar, lecturers SM Umrani, RS Acharya, BP Dane, AP Kulkarni and VM Aranke has proved important. The strength of NSS, which was just a handful of students in 2008, has now gone up to 300 and all are eager to work for the village, said students Anuradha Dhumal and Chetan Koli.