Students, who had spent part of their final semester working with various communities across Madurai, displayed their findings and solutions for major problems at ‘Open House,’ an annual exhibition at Lady Doak College, here on Friday.
Students from 17 departments showcased their work with a community chosen by the student representatives. While the Commerce department worked with five private companies to analyse the spending of their corporate social responsibility funds (CSR), students from Chemistry dug deep to find out water quality in the city.
A. S. Priscilla, Coordinator of Life Frontier Engagement (LiFE), said that the exhibition was result of a community-based experiential learning and action research plan. “When it was first introduced in 2003, this was an optional course. Soon the administration decided to introduce it as part of the curriculum,” she said. The course was made mandatory in 2014.
Students learn to engage with communities at a field level for four months. “After this, they go to the field and apply their knowledge. Here they talk to the public, learn about their practical difficulties and provide proposals with solutions for various government bodies and private organisations like NGOs,” she said.
Students like N. Yazhini from the Economics department said that the community she worked with at Lakshmipuram was welcoming. “A person from the Backward Classes asked us to wash our hands before entering the house because we visited a Scheduled Caste person’s house. That was when we realised how deeply caste was entrenched in the community,” she said.
She added that students of the department provided several solutions to the Village Administrative Officer. “We hope some of them will be implemented,” she said.
