Regular Activities

Educational/Extracurricular Outreaches

Occasional student-led outreaches are arranged, where volunteers venture to nearby villages, gather interested students, and provide them fun demonstrations related to topics of science and environment. Peppered in with these demonstrations are sports and art sessions to make outreaches more engaging.

  • Places we visited: Nearby gate no. 7, 16 no., Doluipur, Mohanpur, Kantabelia, Ghoragachha

    • Clothes Distribution

    Efforts have been made to collect clothes from students at IISER Kolkata, segregate them according to gender and size, and distribute them among the compromised strata.

  • Donations from the IISER-K community
  • Usually twice a year

    • Diwali Celebration

    Efforts have been made to collect clothes from students at IISER Kolkata, segregate them according to gender and size, and distribute them among the compromised strata.

  • Distribution of mithai and diya to each family

    • Excursions

    Occasionally, students are taken on educational field trips to local attractions, like museums and planetariums. This provides them hands-on experience to engage in topics related to their curriculum in real-time.

    New Projects

    Menstrual hygiene awareness

    Suburban and rural areas around the IISER Kolkata campus were lacking vital information about Menstrual Hygiene and its remedies. To counter this, Ek Pehal introduced this programme, mainly led by the female volunteers of the team and backed by others.

    Here's why we started this:

    1. Less prevalent use of pads
    2. Improper disposal
    3. Lacking awareness about general menstrual hygiene

    What's been done:

    1. 4-5 rounds of pad-distribution (16no, Doluipur, Kantabelia)
    2. Awareness camps, communicating door-to-door
    3. Survey and database maintenance
    The regions of 16 no, Doluipur, and Kantabelia were targeted to spread awareness about menstrual Hygiene, and the utilization of Sanitary Pads.

    Goals:

    1. Be a stable source of pads for the community
    2. Make them choose pads over clothes or other potentially harmful elements
    3. Proper disposal
    4. More awareness and acceptance amongst the younger generation
    In the long run, the goal is to impart knowledge about Menstrual Hygiene and equip the impoverished strata with basic amenities.

    Door-to-door Teaching

    The Door-to-Door Teaching programme was started in response to the decline of attendance after the pandemic. The primary objective of this initiative was to target a previously untapped section of students, while also alleviating the issue of lack of transport.

    Here's why we started this:

    1. Poor connectivity with the campus, family inhibitions
    2. Fluctuating attendance

    What's been done:

    1. Intensive outreach at Ghoragachha, aimed mainly at 4th-5th graders
    2. Weekly (or biweekly)
    3. School-orientated as well as holistic education, more exposure
    The programme arranged volunteers to go directly to the students' doorstep and conduct brief teaching sessions every weekend. The sessions also included special informative segments to teach topics that students would find engaging.

    Goals:

    1. Make the interested students independent learners
    2. Help the students, usually marked as the weaker ones, at their own pace
    3. Identifying individual strengths and interests
    4. Maintain an individual-informed database
    5. Collaborate with the local schools and work as a complementary body
    The goal is to encompass a large audience and encourage students to find interest in learning independently, seeing education as something outside the typical school curriculum.