The lady Of Shallot

Today we all finished the NSS assignment. As part of the WBUT curriculum, we had been working under an organization called Prayasam for ur National Social Services programme. It had started with the survey we all had to do in different blocks in Salt Lake. The survey form had different services (plumber, electrician, security) in which we had to conduct the survey. The aim was actually to find out services which were not readily available in Salt Lake. Then Prayasam would provide vocational training to the children living in the slum areas in those services so that they can work gainfully in those sectors rather than working as child labour.

The survey was fun with us gaining varied experiences, both sweet and sour. There were cases of doors literally being shut on our faces! When we tried to describe the mission of our survey one of the residents had even commented that she had seen a lot of surveys like these and they are useless. This brings one aspect of the common people in notice, that most people, living in the luxury of their comfortable homes don’t even want to hear the plight of these poor children. How do we then expect to make this a social movement? We believe that the most important step to preventing child labour is to prmote awareness in the general public regarding this. But as seen in most cases, people are hardly wiling to listen.

But incidents like these did not stop us from moving on with our aim, to actually make people listen and help us. In most cases we were received well. All in all, it has been an enjoyable experience.

The second nice thing was the poster making. We gathered in group of ten to make it. Loads of planning, brainstorming and we finally came up with a nice poster to the best of our ability. Hopefully, it will have its impact.

This has been a novel idea of incorporating NSS in our WBUT curriculum. Had it not been for Prayasam, we would not have seen the menace of child labour in such detail. Through the videos that we were shown in the college conference room we saw how beautifully Prayasam has been working with these childen from poorer economic conditions. It is really an aplaudable thing that they are doing. They are touching so many lives through it. And because of them, even we could be a part of this mission of eradicating child labour. Maybe we haven’t ben able to do much, but the awareness that it has created in us is precious. And hopefully, the brochures that we have distributed during our survey session might also have influenced a few people to actually think about this problem of child labour and work against it.

Please check out the Prayasam official website to know more on how beautifully they are working towards the cause of children from economically backward section: Prayasam