By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 24 Jun: UPES has launched a social internship programme – ‘Srijan’, which was formally inaugurated by Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat during a virtual event on 23 June. ‘Srijan’ is a novel initiative under UPES School for Life to provide students with essential life skills, human skills and social skills. The university has partnered with 350 NGOs for the same.
Through ‘Srijan’, more than 3000 under-graduate students of first year will go through a mandatory six week long social internship programme and volunteer their time with the partner NGOs such as Vedanta Foundation, Navjyoti India Foundation, Sewa International, Goonj, CRY, Katha, Hope Foundation, GREENPEACE, World Wildlife Fund, Teach for India, NIIT Foundation, Salaam Baalak Trust and many more.
While UPES is preparing students to excel academically, Srijan is an effort by the university to make students socially conscious and better leaders of tomorrow, creating a positive social impact throughout the nation.
Inaugurating the event, CM Rawat said, “UPES has always been a forerunner in supporting the local communities of Uttarakhand in various ways. Srijan is yet another commendable effort by it that goes beyond the regular classroom education, preparing students to become compassionate human beings and effective leaders. It is important that the young minds are sensitised towards developing an equitable and sustainable society to achieve lasting progress, as envisaged by our Prime Minister.”
Dr Sunil Rai, VC, UPES, added, “Young people have the potential to shape a better world. They have the energy and the will to deep dive into problems and look for solutions. Introducing them to the social sector right in the beginning of their higher education journey through social internships will create future change makers, social entrepreneurs and problem solvers that our country needs. In line with the National Education Policy, these social internships are designed for all-round development of students.”
The School for Life aims to deliver a broad base of curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular learning experience, teaching students a diverse mix of academic and non-academic skills. The social internships under the school will give the students the chance to apply the non-academic skills in real life scenarios.
For a purposeful outcome, the social internships are divided in three phases. The pre-internship phase is when the student is made aware of the social issues through Master classes and Q&A sessions with professionals. The second phase is the ‘Action’ phase when the student is undertaking the internship and the final phase is the ‘Reflection’ phase that happens through experiences such as writing blogs and e-portfolios etc
All the models of social internships at UPES have been designed to make sure that learning is happening at every stage and eventually mould our students in becoming responsible citizens.
