Events

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Development Immersion Program

Students of Thiagarajar School of Management are given an excellent opportunity to undergo one week Development Immersion Program at Tata Dhan academy. This academy nurtures, grooms and educates young graduates to gain an insight about rural life. The students were divided into various groups and were exposed to social issues prevailing in rural area. As a team we were given chance to have field visits where we learnt about poverty and livelihood dimensions. We dealt about real case studies of selected families in both urban and rural regions. We had been to the village Keelamundal which is situated near the sea shore of Ramnad district and it is located 22kms away from Sayalkudi. As it is located near sea shore main occupation of the residents is marine fishing. The village consists of nearly 1000 households.

The problems that  keelamundal villagers encounter is that pricing of the fishes by the mode of unformulated auctioning that brings uncertainty to their income, non-availability of organised finance and high debt from local creditors. The worsen situation over there about the medical facilities is that they have a hospital constructed by government but no doctors are available. They need to move for about 7Kms to the nearby village even to avail first aid facilities. For maternity they need to move to Sayalkudi which is 22Kms from village. We also observed how they lead their life without basic amenities and willpower among them to face the challenges. We all stayed for a day and had a different experience and could sympathize for their poor lives with not even enough money to cater to the food, education and health needs of the family. But the villagers taught us a great lesson for life: The real happiness is not gained from money but it is gained by serving others. Presence of different communities, their relations, housing conditions, health and education status of their families, impact of various government schemes and services were analysed and presented. 


Resource persons from different sector shared their experience on “moving out of poverty, social security, old age issues, alcoholism, value practice and professional life”. We also had a session on “Healthy lifestyle” which was handled by Dr. Shankar of “Keep Fit” hospital. He made us clear that most of the health issues are related to our thoughts. Thus optimistic way of thinking will help us to stay healthy and happy forever. We had a motivational session by Mr.Prithiviraj Village Administrative officer of Arupukottai municipality. His principle is to lead a corruption free life. He shared us the difficulties in being as Village Administration Officer without being corrupted.

We had an ice breaking session on “Purpose of life by Prof. Seshadri”, IIM Bangalore. The ultimate purpose of life is “self realization” was his main objective that everyone should realize. Overall through this DIP program we saw entirely a different face of life.

Realise how blessed we are..! Live to serve..!

This article is written by

Divya B and Padmaja S

II MBA

Specialized in Finance