Completion of Yet Another Successful Semester By NSS Model Village

With an intention of continuing its success in rural areas of Roorkee, the volunteers of Model Village cell of NSS, IIT ROORKEE again completed a semester of free coaching classes from 11:00 am-1:00 pm in Bhangeri village on 1^st November, 2015. The cell volunteers had been working rigorously in the areas of health, education, employment and awareness to ensure a healthy and progressive society. 

The activity which forms the part and parcel of this cell is to provide free education to the children of all age groups and thus, preparing them for the impending competition that awaits them when they actually get into the intricacies of real life. In order to facilitate developmental strategies and to bridge the gap between urban and rural India, Model Village, NSS IIT Roorkee strives to work hard in this direction and ensures the availability of basic amenities, facilities and useful commodities to the rural folk. With regular lessons of subjects like Physics, Maths, etc. from Monday to Friday, Saturday and Sunday are meant to be devoted for doing simple and knowledgeable experiments along with giving a little dosage of moral sciences and healthy sports activities like kho-kho and kabaddi.

Other happenings included events like quizzes, essay writing aimed at cultivating their co-curricular activities also. Not only this, regular students and winners were awarded to further invoke their interests in respective areas.

In a nutshell, the journey which started three years back from a small section of the village has now moved on to the entire village with 90 students at present, thus creating more awareness and involving even greater participation.

Smiles all over as NSS Model Village award the achievers

“All work and no play makes jack a dull boy” so true is this saying. When the model village cell of IIT Roorkee accepted the responsibility of educating young minds, they did not miss out the extra-curricular activities in their schedule. Thus along with teaching academic subjects to the students of Bangheri village, additional activities were planned from time to time so that the students may get a chance to explore what lies inside them.

Keeping in mind, the overall development of the personality of the students, various events were conducted by NSS Model Village Cell like Quiz Competitions, Sport Events and Essay writing competition. Even the students who are not able to attend the school on a regular basis were asked to be present at class on Sundays in order to keep pace with their studies. On 31^st October such students who put in extra efforts for the sake of their studies were rewarded and encouraged in the prize distribution ceremony.

“A healthy mind dwells in a healthy body”. Along with weekly school activities NSS Model Village also motivates students to participate in sport activities and the students who excelled were awarded in the ceremony. NSS Model village encourages its students to perform well in academics as well as other activities and the morale of the students was boasted after this prize distribution ceremony which was more than evident from their smiling faces. This reassured that NSS is on the right path of achieving the dream of a better and happy society. 

Essay Writing And Quiz Competition Organised By NSS Model Village

 On 2^nd October, an essay competition was organized for the students with the topic ‘Mahatma Gandhi - A great leader’ and ‘Lal Bahadur Shastri’ to create awareness among the young minds about these great gems of our country. The students of Bhangeri village who are taught by the volunteers of NSS Model Village cell were really excited for the event.

The students of Std. 2^nd to 7^th participated in the competition. As it was a holiday to the normal teaching activities, the students were advised to come to the school for the events. There were nearly 40 students who participated in the events.

A Quiz competition was also held on the topic of our National heritage, the same day. Both the events received stupendous response from the students. It was declared that an award ceremony will be organized for the students who came up with flying colours in these events later. These event not only helped the students get enlightened and enriched by the preaching’s and noble works of these great leaders but also gave them a chance to develop writing skills and competitive spirit as well.

Model Village Survey

Village is a small community or group of houses in a rural area. Regrettably, the condition of the Indian villages is not good. There is inadequate arrangement for the treatment of the sick. There are insufficient facilities for educating the masses. The bulk of the people in Indian villages are illiterate and ignorant. There is dirt all over in the village. They don’t have good facilities like proper house, proper toilets , proper road and many more.

Students asking villagers about their sanitation facilities

Keeping these things in mind, NSS IIT Roorkee Model Village cell students decided to visit a small village  Bhangedi near IIT. The main motto of this cell was to make a survey about toilet facilities in every house of the village. Besides this, they will run classes every Sunday to provide free education to children from class 1-10 .All the students reported near Rajiv bhawan at 10am. It was the 1st time when 1st year students where going and so everyone where excited and determined to do their work. All students went to the village on bicycle. The touch of village could be felt as we could see poor road with no proper sanitation and drainage facilities. Everyone was overwhelmed with grief seeing those conditions. After parking their cycle, their works were handsomely distributed by their leader Prem bhargav and according to his plan they would cover each and every house. Students were divided into groups with each group having 6-7 students.

Students observing the issues faced by villagers

Students knocked at every house. Few people were getting paranoid but students politely asked their problem and discussed their plan of providing free toilets in every house. People got impressed with their strategies and patiently discussed their problem. Sadly, there were many houses with no toilets. They also promised to improve the condition of existing toilets. Students noted down their name, address and problems. Students discussed about free education and all parents agreed to allow their children for joining the classes. Even though few villagers where rude, students patiently and kindly presented their plans to them and asked their problem. Some where not willing to give their detail gave but after peaceful conversation they agreed to give their detail. Everyone was glad to see smile on the face of villagers. Inspite of their poor condition, villagers asked us water and tea. What a kind gesture! After 2 hours of hard work in such a hot weather, the work was over. Every student was feeling sad and wanted to change the condition of the village. They were happy as they were the part of such a great cell where they can stay with these poor people, understand their problem and try their best to improve there problem. Seeing the determination of students of this cell, surely a change will be visible in that small village in few days.

Model Village : Bhangedi

After their incredibly successful Bhangedi Talent Search Examination (BTSE), the Model Village Cell of NSS is focusing on more lucid tasks which are largely youth-centred and would help in making Bhangedi self-dependent thereby achieving a holistic development.

 As a follow-up to BTSE, Model Village has made a few groups of NSS students who shall be tutoring and mentoring the village students (who made it through BTSE) in academics, sports and art so as to hone their specific talents.Four groups have been made for this purpose. First one is for children of classes 6-8 which shall give particular emphasis on making the children, especially girls, bold and self-confident. Second one will be for boys of classes 9-12 and will employ sports as a major tool for teaching them instead of the usually boring verbal lectures. A third one will handle the girls of classes 9-12 and would focus on women empowerment. The last group gets more creative. It is for teaching science to students by interesting and curious experiments and will take help from various Profs of IITR to design some to cater to the needs of village students.Apart from these, several other groups have been made one of which is socio-economic technical initiatives which shall discover various socio-economic exploits in the village. There is a separate task group entrusted with exploring the possibilities of using the Right to Education Act for getting the village kids into Private schools. Last but not the least is the plan to grease together a faction of village women who will work for tackling social vices prevailing in the village. In a nutshell, Model Village continues to do some awesome work and one can really hope that they can turn Bhangedi into a model for the rest of Indian villages.

Bhangedi Talent Search Examinations

With an intention to find the bright minds among the kids in the rural area around Roorkee, Model Village section of NSS IIT-Roorkee organised a talent search examination in the village of Bhangedi on the weekend following the Republic Day. It was a two day event, stretching from 26th to 27th January 2013.

 The main exam was held on the first day. The participants of this event were divided on the basis of their age groups and were tested in the areas of science, maths and General Knowledge. The exam paper was set with a choice of language (English or Hindi), & with the motive that only deserving candidates get selected. Various sport events including races, Kho-Kho, long jump etc., were conducted in the evening. The events had a very active participation by the children of the village.

On the next day, the students were involved in different co-curricular events like creative writing, drawing etc..These events saw many creative minds with astonishing creativity. The prize distribution was held in the evening, which was presided over by various dignitaries from the local panchayat including Mr. Shyam Chandra(village head) ,Mr. Balakrishnan(pradan).The dignitaries also included Mrs. Pallavi(local school head master),Mrs. Neelam (Teacher of Army Public School) and Mr. Rajender (Head of food distribution in public schools) .  The chief guest Mr.Balakrishnan, pradhan of the village distributed the prizes. The Most prestigious Bhangedi Gaurav Puraskar was awarded to Mohini and Nagma both of class XI. The prizes were very generous and no single child was left bare handed. The students’ enthusiastic participation and constant support from the elders of the village was remarkable. All said and done, the event was a grand success in all perspectives.

Sports Event for Children

A sporting event for children was organized on 14th October by the Model Village Cell at Bhangedi Village. Around 30 students of the village participated from age group of 10 years to 13 years. They played games like football, cricket, kho kho guided by cell members. It was clearly visible from their faces that they had played to their heart’s content. After the sports, the cell secretaries also held a healthy interaction between the parents of the participants. The people in the village were excited to make their village a “Model Village”. If every person in village joins hand to educate the young ones in their own village, every village can be transformed into a “Model Village”. It’s just a matter of will power and a vision which can shape India.

Making of the Yuva Team in Bhangendi Village

On Saturday, 7^th October, a motivational video on health, hygiene and food was presented before the children through a projector. The video aimed at instilling in the children general awareness about personal cleanliness and its importance in life. The students were also made acquainted with the political map of the Indian sub-continent and were taught to identify basic geographical features like their own country, surrounding water bodies, their current location and other interesting stuff.

Alongside all this, Model Village also did a survey of the village youth regarding their name, age, education, marks obtained in previous class, father’s name and job and contact information. The purpose was to make a ‘Yuva Team’ comprising of competent young people (15-25 years of age) from the village who will help in identifying and solving the internal problems gnawing the village and willalso help in extending the reach of the Model Village cell itself.

At the end of the day, the children and the NSS volunteers had a little playtime in the backyard with the children riding their bicycles in the narrow roads of the village. One could see the satisfaction and happiness that those proficiency holders obtained from getting to relive their childhood.

Motivational Session and Quiz for Children at Bhangedi Village

The event, which was organised in the Junior School, Bhangedi village on 30th September 2012, began on a warm note at 3:30 pm with an overwhelming participation of the local village children.

The event comprised of screening videos to teach and motivate the local village children followed by a quiz. The village children comprising of students from classes fourth to eighth were assembled in the main room of village school. The videos were followed by a discussion session in which the children participated with great enthusiasm. After each video the members of NSS Model Village gave the description of the videos as well as linked the message of the videos to their daily lives. They were also taught to follow the principles of never giving up, keeping the environment clean etc.

The video session was followed by an audio-visual quiz. The first few questions were related to the identification of freedom fighters like Chandrashekhar Azad and Subhash Chandra Bose from the relevant movie clips. Also some photographs of eminent personalities like Anna Hazare, Mahatma Gandhi, and Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishn were shown and were asked to identify them. The children participated actively in the quiz and the related discussions. Prizes in the form of stationery were also distributed to encourage the students.

The event was a very successful one with the children enjoying their holiday with fun-filled activities and at the same time having a great learning experience.

Initial Surveying at Bhangedi Village

This year, the village opted by the Model Village Cell of NSS Chapter of IIT Roorkee was Bhangedi Village which is at a distance of 4km from IIT Roorkee Campus. The activities for the new session began on 23rd September 2012. The events included teaching and gaming activities for children, collection of water samples for pollution testing and a survey for tree plantation drive.

After reaching the village near Valmiki temple at morning 10.30 a.m, three groups were formed. The first group comprising of about ten people went to cover the whole village and collect water samples from the roadside hand pumps to be tested in civil department laboratory for any sort of pollution. The other group with about the same number of people surveyed the full village to identify suitable places for tree plantation and developed the map of the village with the identified places marked on it for reference on the day of tree plantation. Rest of the people stayed back in the Valmiki temple and taught the village children gathered in the temple for some time and later had a gaming session with them. All the activities embarked the new session for Model Village and laid down the path for further activities in the session and gave a chance to the members of the cell for a healthy interaction with the village community.