Institutional Social Responsibility Seminar (2017)
The annual seminar conducted by SCIT’s ISR committee was organized on 9th December, 2017 and the theme for the seminar was “Education Bridging the Gap for Underprivileged”. The event started off with the lighting of lamp by the guests along with SCIT director Dr. Dhanya Pramod and deputy director Dr. Kanchan Patil and the faculty members.
Dr. Dhanya Pramod welcomed everyone to the seminar and gave a speech on why is it important to sensitize the youth about the issues being faced in the society so that the students can give back to the society. She also shared memories from her childhood about how she and her friends used to help the underprivileged children in Kerala. She ended her speech by mentioning that education is all about gaining knowledge and giving back by ways which are best for the community.
The first speaker for the day, Mr. Timothy Hiwrale, Director of Sparsh, an NGO, shared the stories of his childhood struggles and how that inspired him to work for the underprivileged. He urged the students to join his cause, to support people in need. He explained to the students about the work done by his NGO in rehabilitating street children, trafficked women and homeless and drug addicted people.
For the entertainment of the guests there was a fabulous performance by the SCIT band who sung all inspirational songs to fill the audience with vigor. The next part of the seminar had a panel discussion and the discussion topic was “Why is education for the underprivileged still many miles to go in India?” The panelists were Timothy Hiwrale, Director at Sparsh Lelith Daniel, Asst. Prof. at Symbiosis School of Liberal Arts Tushar Juvekar, Head of CSR activities at KPIT Tech. Ltd. Darryl Cardoza, an active member of Maher Org and the moderator for the discussion was Ms.Tanuja Yelale, who is an ISR representative at SIU.The panelists discussed about range of issues from the origination of the current education system to the RTE act implementation issues. The panelist stressed on the importance of taking an initiative to change things for a better tomorrow, without losing hope.
The 2nd session of ISR seminar 2017 commenced with a presentation by Darryl Cardoza from Maher Organization. Mr. Darryl Cardoza talks about how Maher Organization took the initiative to help destitute men, women and children. Through this initiative, they now support more than 500 women, 900 children and 52 men. Ms. Mrunal Badawe & Ms. Geetanjali Deshmukh explained the programmes conducted in IDEA. Some of the programmes being Udaan, Unnati, Ashakiran and e-Sakshar educate women to make them employable.
A second panel discussion was held at the later part of the seminar and the topic for discussion was “Education as an instrument for social change”. The panelists were Anubhav Kapoor, General Counsel and Secretary at Tata Technologies Jyoti Bawne, Asst. Prof. at Indian Institute of Education Murzaban Jal, Director at Centre for Educational Studies Sujata Deshpande, Sr. Manager at Thermax Foundation and it was moderated by Dr. Sophia Gaikwad from Teaching Learning Resource Centre at SIU.
The event concluded with an act by the SCIT theatre group “Eklavya”. The entire event encouraged the students to help change the world by taking up the social responsibility.
