A small tribute to big sacrifice of soldiers

“The wisest men follow their own direction,” ancient Greek scholar Euripides wrote.
In an enactment of this very tenet, a group of students, under the umbrella of Team Samarpana, organisation of student volunteers, dedicated to work for the cause of soldiers, is busy campaigning to spread its reach and expand its scope to other issues plaguing the country.

In the last 30 days, the volunteers have campaigned across 80-odd educational institutions and about 60 corporates.

Says Jawahar Raj, core team member and pre-final year engineering student: “We have been functioning since 2009 and have about 150 active volunteers from our college participating in activities related to the causes of soldiers, especially martyrs. We have realised that there are many more issues plaguing the country and we want to expand our network and scope of work.”

The volunteers, expressing discontent with the system, which has eroded their faith, commonly believe: “We have to walk the talk. There is no point in just raising issues and hoping somebody else will work towards solving them.”

With their founding fathers all having moved out of college, about six office bearers of Samarpana have managed to expand their network to an additional 50 volunteers from colleges other than theirs.

Expansion plans

“We have been holding talks and meetings and our goal is to have at least one representative of Samarpana in each college in City and eventually State,” another member, Vivek Agarwal said, adding the idea is for each college( through its wing of Samarpana) to take up one cause and work towards brining change.

Stating that their immediate focus would be poverty, standard of education and housing besides cause of soldiers, another said this will be enhanced as number of volunteers increases.

The organisation has been organising medical camps for families of martyrs and generating funds to educate their children, among other activities. “We do not want this to be politicised, which is why we have kept away from making big announcements about our work,” Raj said.