The Mumbai Educational Trust( MET) league of colleges is all set to complete two decades on November 27. In the months that have gone by, the 12 institutions under the MET banner organised a range of cultural festivals, and events like vaccination drives, cyber security awareness drives, film making workshops, sports meets. In a few days, all of these will culminate in a grand 20 years celebration on the campus. But in the true spirit of celebration, the faculty members and students will be reaching out to over 30,000 tribals inhabiting a village called Waliv in Thane district.
They will be furthering Met's project TRUTH (Total Rural Upliftment Through Holistic Care) which has been operational in this village since 2003. "The festivities have bound all our institutes together, but helping the tribals has brought us closer to the community and given our students a 360 degree education,"said Sunil Karve, founder trustee and vice chairman of MET.
In the past few years, the MET students have built rainwater harvesting catchment areas in the village to ensure water for crops and household purposes for the tribals. They have helped local ashramshalas educate the children better, and helped adults avail of the government budgeted funds in terms of healthcare, daily wages, assured employment. Karve informed that the project TRUTH has been applauded by the United Nations Economic and Social Council too. Today, MET is the only educational organisation world over to receive UN's Special Consultative Status due to these efforts.
But instead of resting on these laurels, the students and faculty are taking the project TRUTH ahead. Through the MET trust, 27 computers have already been donated to three local ashramshalas operational in Waliv.
In association with a local NGO that has been helping the village for years, plans have been charted to improve the quality of education. Karve informed, "We want to help educate the young in the village as also help them find gainful employment."Towards this MET will be starting a vocational institute in the village. Karve informed that the institute should be up and running June 2010.
The plan is to also improve the quality of the pre-existing ashramshalas. "Our faculty from Rishikul Vidyalaya will visit the village on a regular basis to train the trainers as also recruit new teachers to help improve the situation,” `said Karve.Students from MET who wish to take part will be allotted a student from the village to mentor. "They will have to monitor the progress every month and make corrective measures to solve the problems of students with the help of our faculty," added Karve.
On November 27, when MET will complete two decades, the faculty will be not on campus but in the village conducting a vaccination drive for the tribals. "For one and a half month, we will administer immunisation packages to the 250 families in the village to help prevent the spread of diseases like polio, typhoid, cholera , hepatitis, leprosy caused due to poor healthcare and living conditions there."
Efforts are also on to obtain access to a special LIC scheme to insure the tribals.To solve the acute electricity problem, MET is in talks with an NGO in the US which is enthusiastic about providing the 250 families with solar lamps too. MET will also follow up with government authorities to ensure that the villagers get other basic amenities soon.
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