525 lives saved...

DONATING BLOOD is as good as breathing life into some one. Blood donors deserve highest respect for their self sacrifice. There is a continuous increase in the global demand of blood but there is a severe mismatch between demand and supply. The developing countries are the ones suffering the most in this regard. These countries, home to about 82% of the world’s population receive just 38% of the total units of blood donated. India is no exception, where the demand stands at a colossal 8 million units and the demand falls short by 2.5 million units. The reason for this is attributed to the paucity of donors and improper usage of donated blood. Global statistics say that 3 lives can be saved for every unit of donated blood, but in India only 1 life is saved for the same amount of blood. There is hence a pressing need of more and more units of blood and ensuring their proper usage. Couple these facts with the immense satisfaction derived in saving a life and we had reasons enough to organize a blood donation camp! We did it in collaboration with IMA Dehradun and Himalayan Institute Hospital Dehradun and Government Hospital, Roorkee on 13^th September.

NSS was successful in removing general misconceptions about blood donation among students prior to the camp by the way of a motivational lecture. They were made aware of the various benefits of donating blood like refreshing of blood by production of new Red Blood Cells to replenish the blood lost, and the reduced danger of heart diseases.

We received an overwhelming response from students with a total of 525 units of blood being collected during the course of the day. We had a much higher number of people willing but quite a few were sent back owing to some health problems! It was immensely gratifying to see such an excellent response and to realize that all our efforts in trying to make a difference in people’s lives weren’t futile!

Director Dr. Saxena thanked NSS and all those who could spare a few minutes of their time for this kind gesture and helped in saving countless lives. “Blood Donation is a supreme and noble service to the mankind. It gives great satisfaction and young people should donate blood occasionally”, he said. Dean of Students’ Welfare was also very appreciative of our efforts and commended NSS on its steady progress.NSS also distributed goodies and gifts to the donors as a token of appreciation for being a part of this noble purpose.



A few drops of your blood can spell the difference between life and death for someone. It may be the reason for someone to dream on...

Cloth Distribution

Owing to rapidly growing infrastructure of IITR, currently a large number of construction workers are employed in the campus. These workers, having their settlements inside the campus only, somehow manage to scrape along with whatever meager means they have. Decent food, clothing, shelter and education are luxuries for these workers and their families.

We at NSS believe in serving the society at the smallest possible levels. There is nothing to be achieved by aiming for the overall societal development if we ignore the cruel scene of humanity being played right in front of our eyes! The rags in which these families dress in put us to shame, seeing how lavishly we spend on our clothing and how equally extravagantly we throw away the ones we grow out of. Hence, we initiated a clothes collection drive and roped in the Professors and students likewise to donate their useless pieces of clothing. We even got the students from COER to contribute. It was an extremely pleasant surprise for us to find everyone very cooperative and at the end of the drive we had a large collection of clothes which we then sorted out according to gender and age.

Finally on august 22nd, we organized a clothes distribution camp. Two sets of clothes were given to each individual. A huge crowd gathered on the site of the camp made us feel pleased about the step we had taken but at the same time it was heart wrenching to see the poverty so clearly etched in their faces. Despite their eagerness, they were very well behaved again to our very pleasant surprise, especially remembering the havoc we wreck everywhere there is a gathering of people aiming for the same thing, even chapatis in mess. The whole event was managed very well and the distribution took place in a very orderly manner with some children putting on the clothes the very instant they received them! And to think that the reason for their beaming faces was lying forgotten all the while in junk cupboards most likely to be thrown away in a bin! This event underlined for us the importance of small endeavors we undertake and the profound effect they have.

At this juncture we would like to express a heartfelt thanks to all our volunteers who sacrificed their weekend and chose to work under the burning sun for the same. It gave us immense pleasure to see that the smiles which this simple gesture put on the faces of the workers were a reward high enough for all those involved in the camp.