By Dr Narayan B Iyer
 
Mumbai, Nov 3: A batch of 54 students from Saraswati College of Management from Kharghar, Navi Mumbai traveled all the way to Vimala Dermatological Centre, a leprosy-home, in Versova, Andheri West in North Mumbai to get their practical knowledge in social responsibility aspects, recently.
 
B-Schools have the option to choose corporate social responsibility as one of their subjects in the curriculum. The second batch of mangement students of Saraswati College once again aligned with Indian Development Foundation (IDF), a leading national NGO working for health, education and rural development to take them into the pathway of social responsibility programmes.

Karthick Sridhar, IDF social entrepreneur interacted with the students and explained to them in detail the working of CSR and the need for corporate to be socially responsibility for the overall growth of the society.  "Every sector should come forward, participate and protect the overall interest of the society.  May it be education, environment or economy, industries and companies, small or big in nature should develop the feeling of sharing resources and give back their best to the society", he said.

Karthick narrated several examples that are present in the current scenario and made it easier for the students to understand the subject in a much easier manner.

Dr A R K Pillai, founder president and Dr Narayan B Iyer, national co-ordinator of the foundation gave useful tips for students to adopt as part of their projects. 

A film on leprosy rehabilitation and educational projects of IDF was shown to the students which moved their minds to take up concrete projects for IDF. Students of Saraswati College of Management will be visiting various educational institutions to create health awareness and also make presentation to corporates to mobilize resources for the foundation.

We felt happy visiting the leprosy centre and after seeing the plight of the patients, we really forgot our long distance travel, expressed Sanjeet Gupte and Rohan Shirdhankar, students of the B-School.

Ninad, Vishal, Bhavna, Sonali and Deepa joined their batchmates and chalked out several projects that they intended to take up during the next 30 days. "We are committed to achieving our desired results and as Management students its a golden opportunity for us to prove our social entrepreneurial skills", said the B-School students.

IDF, formerly Indian Leprosy Foundation is a leading national NGO committed to health, education and rural development.  B-School students from various colleges in India are aligning up with IDF as part of their social internship.