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Confidence building: counseling, leadership training, student development workshops and camps.
The Campus Diversity Initiative thought it important to address student concerns, as the students perceived them. Their concerns
of self-development, and how they could overcome their sense of inadequacy and insecurity, inability to cope with academic requirements and parental expectations were therefore a priority issue. Counseling services in colleges are usually directed towards career selection and academic needs of the students. The all-pervasive sense of alienation of youth in colleges towards the generation of parents and faculty, are not taken too seriously. While this has been perceived as a concern among rural youth, it is an equally important concern for urban and semi-urban youth, most of
who have migrated from rural backgrounds. CDI activities are oriented towards building the self-confidence and self-esteem of the students and encourage effective communication.
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After a training session on
communication skills, a group of boys and girls from
different regional and social backgrounds were asked to
come up to the mike and talk for three minutes on.
Democracy and Citizenship. After some initial diffidence
they came, one by one, and spoke about the Constitution,
Fundamental Rights and a citizen's duties. Bhushan, a
tribal boy from the Satpura hills, spoke in accented
Hindi. He recounted in a few sentences the tragedy of a
labourer who was unable to pay his debt of a labourer who
was unable to pay his debt of a few hundred rupees to his
landlord. In a fit of depression he hanged himself,
leaving the village community deeply concerned about the
fate of his wife and small children.. "How can we
talk about democracy?" asked Bhushan "if we do
not have social justice?" |
Educational Resources Centre has organized two student camps this year. These camps promote a spirit of understanding and cooperation among students from various backgrounds. Participating colleges have organized several such events where the faculty, trained at ERC workshops, has worked with students. At student camps, inter-collegiate debates and essay competitions organized, students have been encouraged to voice their opinions on a variety of issues, without any inhibitions about language and regional differences, while at the same time developing an appreciation for other perspectives.
Theatre workshops have given students an opportunity to explore issues and articulate them in street plays,
radio and stage dramas that have been very well received.
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Students of a CDI college in Tirthahalli,
Karnataka, have won a prize of Rs. 5000, in a radio competition for a play they wrote and enacted on the Environment, an area of great concern for them in their
location in the forests of the Western Ghats. |
When asked what they had gained from,- their CDI programs on their campuses, the students of Jai Hind College, Dhule, said they had learnt "stage-daring," an expression that is their own description of the quality of assertiveness and a bold articulation of their points of view at a public forum. Stage daring has particular importance for girls who have not been conditioned to stand with self-confidence to assert their individuality.
Making women students self-confident and assertive
 ERC's programs have laid particular emphasis on the empowerment of women. The self-confidence and assertiveness
of women students in CDI colleges have grown -through participation in programs held on campuses where students and faculty, male and female, have enrolled in courses on the Status of Women, introduced as an activity of the Campus Diversity Initiative. A spin-off has been that male faculty and students have been sensitized to gender issues.
New links have been forged between women students and their faculty, and a system of mentoring has emerged.
At the request of the Centre for Women's Studies at Utkal University,
ERC will hold a workshop especially designed for graduate women students, to counsel and develop their assertiveness in order to empower them as they step out into professional fields. This is the first time
ERC will have worked exclusively with women graduate students and we are enthusiastic and excited about taking this further to other women's groups, beyond the CDI network. The workshop at Utkal University is scheduled for March, 2001 and a report will be available soon thereafter.
English, language coaching and remedial courses
Student perceptions of diversity issues affecting the campus climate, surprisingly, placed gender and socioeconomic differences above religious or caste
distinctions. The question of language assumes importance as an indicator of elitism. Those who come from educated backgrounds and are schooled in institutions where English is the medium of instruction, are perceived to have an advantage over first generation learners from vernacular medium schools, where students are taught in the language of the region. Language influences the mobility of those who want to study in professional institutions where English is the language of instruction, of employment opportunity -especially in the global arena of international
business and technology. English language coaching and remedial courses are, therefore, a need that some colleges are addressing through the
CDI.
Citizenship building
Role Plays have proved very effective in making the students aware of their latent prejudices and helping them see social issues and conflicts in a new perspective. The problems of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, the status of the girl child, her education, her identity, dowry and female infanticide, communal and caste conflict are all themes developed by students in their role play situations at student workshops.
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