The SRF Week was an event spanning for 4 days from the 19th to 24th of October. The aim of this event was to highlight the contemporary social issues and to create awareness and sensitivity towards them. The 4 topics that chosen were:
- Men’s Rights
- Blood Donation
- LGBT Rights
- Social Entrepreneurs
MANday Mantra (Men’s Rights) was dedicated to recognizing the subtle, indirect yet ever present discrimination against men. We aimed to show the contrast between Gender Equality and Gender Bias. We had an interactive session with Mr. Rohit Roy, critically acclaimed TV and stage actor of Des Mein Nikla Hoga Chand and Unfaithfully Yours fame, on how women empowerment is essential, but supporting women is not equal to suppressing men.
We also had Mr. Amit Deshpande, the founder of Vaastav foundation an NGO dedicated to men’s right activism, who told us how in today’s society men are vulnerable when it comes to false allegations, because of the misguided bias towards women.
Blood2Nation was conducted in collaboration with SRLC Foundation. In lieu of this, an entire setup was created to conduct Blood Donation within the college campus. We had two major hospitals, Tata Memorial and Lilavati coming in with their staff to conduct the drive. We had 500 applicants for the Drive who were all gifted with mementos by the SRLC foundation.
Rainbow Pride (LGBT Rights) was held to create awareness about the LGBT community and their acceptance in today’s society. We had a talk by VJ Andy, of Bigg Boss and Ek Paheli Leela fame, who has categorically refused to succumb to the perceptional pressure that exists in society.
We also had Ms. Harnidh Kaur, one of our youngest speakers, who is known for her revolutionary TEDx talks. She said Banality of Evil was the greatest danger to society at large. She pointed out that this was prevalent even in the educated class and how that was the root of all the discrimination.
It is often found that in this universal race towards making profits we often neglect to address social problems and the society’s wellbeing. Social Entrepreneurs are those people who have managed to merge these two aspects to create perfect harmony. Thus, SRF dedicated a day to these heros, SocioPROneurs.
We had the intrepid entrepreneurs – Mr. Prashant Issar, owner of Mirchi and Mime – a fine dining establishment in Mumbai that employs those with speech and hearing disability – and Ms. Upasana Makati, the founder of White Print Magazine – India’s first lifestyle magazine in Braille – come in to share their experience as social entrepreneurs.
One common thing that both these entrepreneurs tried to convey was the fact that their business was not doing charity, but solving social problems and making profit from that.
We also collaborated with Rang De, a micro financing venture who sent representatives from their Mumbai chapter to talk about how micro financing helps people fulfill their dreams and to create businesses that can then contribute to the economy. They informed us as to how students can also work for it and how they were willing to collaborate with SRF in the future as well.
We, Team SRF, managed to have a successful week with the constant support and help of all our sponsors, Youth Incorporated – Youth Magazine Partner, Bandra Buzz – Print Media Partner, and Mirchi and Mime – Our sponsor for SocioPROneurs.
Last but not the least; we are grateful for the constant guidance of our respected Dean, all our dear teachers and a great team to work with.
