Aim To Collect Lakh Eye Donation Pledges
With an aim to collect a lakh eye donation pledges to commemorate Republic Day on January 26, the NSS volunteers of Bharathiar University and its affiliated colleges have already made good progress. While some colleges have already achieved the target given to them, others are somewhere between 50 per cent and 90 per cent of achieving the target (500 pledges a unit – a NSS unit has 100 members).
The university’s community service project “Vizhi Koduthu Oli Koduppom” is the third to be implemented in as many years. The project was envisaged to be implemented in three stages. Accordingly the volunteers visited the families living near their colleges from January 3 to 5 and created awareness about eye donation and the procedure involved in giving the pledge and executing it.
They were supposed to revisit them after two weeks with the pledge certificate to be filled in by those interested in pledging their eyes. But, the response from the public has been overwhelming that the volunteers have already collected the filled-in certificates even before the appointed time. The collected certificates will be handed over to the university on January 19 for lamination. The laminated certificates will be handed over to the pledgees on Republic Day.
M. Lakshmanasamy, NSS Project Officer, Kongunadu Arts and Science College, says since their college was located in a rural area, the volunteers had some problem convincing the rural people. “Educated people were very appreciative of the effort. It took some time explaining to the uneducated ones. Students took a lot of effort to make them understand that it was something that was done only with consent and not under duress”. In spite of the odds, the college has already met its target of 2,000 pledges and is planning on collecting more.
Rathinam College of Arts and Science has made a collection of 500 pledges and is looking for more, even though it has no fixed target. Project Officer R. Nagaraj says there were some families were all the members came forward to sign the pledge. PSGR Krishnammal College for Women has so far 975 pledges in its kitty. Project Officer R. Shanthi says that it was difficult convincing even some educated people.
