one drop less. Most of you

must have heard the follow-

ing story :

A man is walking along a

beach and picking up and

throwing the star-fish washed

ashore during high tide, back

into the sea. A passer-by no-

tices this and asks him,

”There are hundreds of such

beaches all over the world

and thousands of such fish die

this way. What difference can

you possibly make?”. The

man quietly picks up and

throws another star-fish into

the sea and says, ”Now I

made a difference to that

one". Every action of yours

towards creating a better

society effects someone ,

somewhere in one way or

the other. Let us all be more

compassionate and responsi-

ble towards our society,

country and ourselves.

You must have seen people

staying in abysmal conditions

in straw huts or some people

being treated as second class

citizens in their own country

or small children working in

roadside restaurants, while

ideally and legally they should

be in school. We have grown

so used to seeing such things

that we no longer view them

as an aberration. This was

not what our freedom fight-

ers fought for and this is defi-

nitely not how we would like

our country to be. Even after

over six decades after achiev-

ing independence , over a

fourth of our population lives

below poverty line. About

35% of the population is illit-

erate and even among the so-

called literates a vast number

are functionally illiterate.

While we bask in the glory of

the economic success of India

and its increasing importance

on the global platform, we

conveniently ignore these

inconvenient facts. We take

pride in the new over-bridge

commissioned in the city but

ironically we do not seem to

notice the poor families re-

siding beneath it. We cele-

brate over the achievement

of a single gold medal at

Olympics but ignore the

plight of promising sports

persons who lack the basic

infrastructure and hence are

not able to realize their

dreams. We conveniently

blame the government for

everything that is going

wrong in our country, but do

we realize that the seemingly

small actions we do can be

more effective than anything

any government can possibly

conceive of? We blame the

government for our littered

streets and public places but

most of us do not hesitate a

moment before throwing that

empty chips packet out of

our car window. As J.F. Ken-

nedy once famously said, “

Ask not what your country

can do for you. Ask what you

can do for your country”.

Sure, you might say that the

small change you can bring is

just a drop in the ocean, but

without that small change of

yours, the ocean would be

INS IDE TH IS

I S SUE :

Editorial 1

Shiksha 2

Self Help

Groups

2

Clean Zari! 3

Blood Dona-

tion Camp

3

With the

Young Minds

4

N O V E M B E R , 2 0 0 8 V O L U M E 2 , I S S U E 1

The Team:

Yashasvi Meka

Tarin Bansal

Rutuja Darode

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But

the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

P A G E 2

Shiksha Education is for improv-

ing the lives of others

and for leaving your

community and world

better than you found

it. Shiksha is the first

project of Nirmaan in

Goa and aims at sup-

plementing education

to the school children

who are deprived of

the same with innova-

tive methods of teach-

ing to make learning fun

and easy!

It has been observed that

students availing school

education in Zari and simi-

lar backward areas do not

get the requisite quality of

education. The problem lies

with the system of Educa-

tion and methods em-

ployed for teaching! Shik-

sha’s mission is the removal

of this problem for the

common benefit of those

students. As a part of Shik-

sha, English is taught to the

students of Govt. Schools

in Zari, two days a week

in the evening. Students

from class first to fourth

are divided into different

levels on the basis of their

knowledge and skills of

English. Different levels of

activities and games are

used for teaching them.

For the students of Secon-

dary School G.K. classes

are also conducted along

with regular English

classes.

W W W . N I R M A A N . O R G

Self Help Groups Forming Self Help Groups

(SHGs) is a mission under-

taken by Nirmaan to create

a continuous source of in-

come to the poor women

residing in near-by slums and

villages. A self help group is

a group of women

who make a particular

product and sell them

in the market. The

profits obtained are

shared by the women.

We formed an SHG

with the women in

Zari who can make paper-

bags at the beginning of this

semester. We managed to

get orders from shops within

the BITS campus and in

Vasco (nearest city to BITS)

for these paperbags. We

intend to expand this SHG

by improving upon the qual-

ity and also manufacturing

hand made paper, by next

semester.

This semester witnessed the

birth of two new SHGs in

addition to the existing one

- one in Zari and the other

in Birla. While the Zari

women work on embroi-

dery products, women in

Birla are interested at stitch-

ing works. The market re-

search for these SHGs has

been completed and talks

are in progress with other

NGOs in Goa to provide

trainers for training these

women.

Projects...

“If you give a

man a fish, he is

fed for a day. If

you teach a man

to fish , he is fed

for his life.”

The number is three

P A G E 3 V O L U M E 2 , I S S U E 1

place and are bound to dis-

pose off there. The con-

crete dumpster which is

already present is unable to

cater to the large popula-

tion in the locality due to

which the entire proximity

gets filled with garbage,

covering the path. We plan

to setup bigger dumpsters

for the purpose with the

help of corporate sponsors

and local municipality.

Work is also being done in

making the people, espe-

A BITSGian always crosses

Zari to reach out to the

world. Zari has the nearest

bus-stop to BITS. It is used

by everyone in the college.

But to reach there one

need to walk through a

dump of garbage which is

seldom clean and get worse

in rain. Nirmaan is working

on cleanliness of the place

and to create awareness

amongst the residents

there. It happens that they

do not have any dumping

cially the school students of

the locality, aware of

proper methods of disposal

and the segregation of bio-

degradable and

n o n -

biodegradable

w a s t e s .

Awareness is

also being cre-

ated about the

use and main-

tenance of

public toilet.

Operation Clean Zari!

W W W . N I R M A A N . O R G

Blood Donation Camp Blood Donation Camp was

successfully conducted on

18th, October in SAC in

association with Goa Medi-

cal College (GMC). Close to

300 members voluntarily

donated blood on this day.

We sincerely thank all the

students and faculty commu-

nity for their active partici-

pation in the programme.

P A G E 4

With the Young Minds..! Independence

Day!

Independence day was cele-

brated with great zeal and

enthusiasm in the Govern-

ment school in Zari. A

memory test was organized

by Nirmaan for the children

of that school and prizes

were given away to the

winners.

Children’s Day!

We firmly believe that the

hope and the future of our

country truly vests in to-

day's children - tomorrow's

leaders. On the eve of chil-

dren's day this year, various

competitions were organ-

ized in the Government

schools of Zari and Zuarina-

gar. Rangoli and Elocution

competition were con-

ducted for students of gov-

ernment high school, Zuari-

nagar. The theme for the

rangoli competition was

'Our National leaders'.

It witnessed participa-

tion from a large num-

ber of students, show-

casting their artistic

skills through col-

ours. The themes for

the elocution compe-

tition were 'Life his-

tory of Pandit Jawaharlal

Nehru' and 'Garbage Dis-

posal problem in Goa'. It

was heartening to listen

the speeches of leaders-in-

making and watch little minds

coming up with great ideas

towards solving the garbage

disposal problem of Goa. The

winners were awarded with

the prizes sponsored by Nir-

maan.

W W W . N I R M A A N . O R G

Contact Us:

Avinash Babu

President

+91-9823806544

Yashasvi Meka

Secretary

+91-9923966043

Email ID

nirmaan.goa@gmail.com

We have only one passion,

the rise of great nation !

Our Chapters:

Pilani Goa

Hyderabad Mumbai

Bangalore Pune

Vizianagaram Chennai