While we all were sleeping cozily in our warm blankets and enjoying the comforts of home in winter vacation, the proud LPU-NSS volunteers were up in freezing cold of 4 AM to get ready for the day. The location of this year’s winter camp was village Barna. It had also hosted winter camp for the last year 2017. The Sarpanch and the Villagers were very responsive and welcomed them with open arms.
The team of coordinators (Volunteer Nasir, Sanu, Sumit and Divas) had already pre-planned and arranged everything before the arrival of rest of the volunteers so that there is no glitch in the set-up. The place where everyone was to stay was Gurdwara which volunteers themselves cleaned and set their own mattress. The theme of the camp was “Community Empowerment”.
Lets now have a look at their day-to-day activities.
Day 1
- Going to the venue
- Cleaning up the Place
- Brief Introduction
- Survey- On how much is the community aware of government schemes and policies.
Day 2
The second day of the camp had the activity of cleaning the whole village. No volunteer was shy as they picked up brooms to clean the streets of the entire village, hence also promoting ‘Swatch Bharat Mission’. They also aimed at promoting awareness on healthy sanitation practices and to link locals with programs of sanitation and public health.
A Guest Lecture was also organized where renowned mentors from LPU came forth to impart knowledge on team building “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress and working together is a success’.
Day 3
The third day of the camp started out with spreading the message “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. For making it lasting and impactful, the volunteers enacted Nukad Nattak and marched in a rally.
Later that day, a talent hunt was organized so that the volunteers could showcase their talents and bring forth their hidden capabilities.
The next day, they participated in sports activities to spread awareness on health and wellness at the village.
Later on, there was a musical performance by blind artists as a tribute to Louis Braille.
Day 4
Volunteers began the 4th day with the quote “Teaching children is an accomplishment, getting children excited about learning is an achievement.” They taught the children in Barna Village.
Later on, to boost energy levels of volunteers, a match of volleyball was played. And another session of team building was conducted.
To expose volunteers to the working mechanism of farmers in a village, a trip to Poly house was organized.
Day 5
The trip day had finally arrived. Starting with a visit to Pingalwara where old and orphaned live, the journey continued to Golden temple and ended at Wagah border. Making volunteers learn the precious lessons of Unity, Family and Almighty.
Day 6
“Reversing deforestation is complicated; planting a tree is simple” – Planting of sapling was the main motto of Day 6th, in which volunteers planted the new saplings in the village.
Afterwards, the volunteers taught primary students of the village. A dance competition was also held to check the team building skills of volunteers along with a guest lecture.
Day 7
The final day of the camp had finally arrived and the ending ceremony was, of course, celebrated with the young students of the Barna’s school. The renowned Sarpanch had motivating words to say to the volunteers.
And of course, you can see on the faces of the volunteers on how these memories and lessons are going to last a lifetime.
Camp coordinator volunteer Divas said that the best part of it all was the active participation of all the volunteers which made the camp so successful. In fact, it was due to their efforts that villagers mingled with them so well.
