Varsity project for Kutch

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MAY 15.

An year long project of Delhi University for rehabilitation of the Gujarat earthquake victims was launched here today by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Deepak Nayyar. Inaugurating the project, Prof. Nayyar said the work was not ``charity, but an occasion to be involved with people''.

Urging the university community to recognise its social obligation as an institution of higher learning, Prof. Nayyar underscored the need to respond beyond individualism in a culture of materialism and an era of marketisation.

The project has been named University for Development and Integrated Learning (UDAI) in keeping with the twin objectives with which it was conceived: Rehabilitation and bringing experimental learning back to the university system by integrating the youth in disaster management and prevention.

The university will implement the project in and around the villages of Rapar Taluka in the Kutch area in collaboration with Gram Swaraj Sangh, a local NGO engaged in rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes. The UDAI project will involve a large number of students, teachers and non-teaching staff in housing, education, health, employment generation and trauma counselling.

With the inauguration of the project also began a training and orientation programme. The first batch of students and three teachers from the Department of Social Work -- who began their training today -- are expected to leave for the earthquake-hit areas of the State shortly. Soon after the earthquake that devastated several parts of Gujarat this Republic Day, Delhi University had sent some of its resident doctors to the State along with the Delhi Government relief team.

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