The Oasis English Press spoke to Yash Laturiya, the Coordinator of the National Service Scheme (NSS) BITS Pilani Chapter, to know more about what the NSS does during the cultural fest.

NSS will be organising three major events during Oasis 2018, namely: Shop for a Smile, Eye Donation Camp and Lend Your Voice. Until last year, the NSS was responsible only for Shop for a Smile, and the group will be organising both the other events for the first time in 2018.

Shop for a Smile is an exhibition and market that sells items obtained from various NGOs around the region such as Disha, Umang, Antarkranti, Happy Hours and Goonj. These NGOs provide NSS with handmade items for sale and display, most of which are made by women, special needs children and even prisoners in rehabilitation. The stall, which will be open for the entire duration of Oasis, sells useful items at nominal prices – including notebooks, diaries, candles, handbags, t-shirts, and laptop bags.

The Eye Donation Camp is Yash’s brainchild, which he put into action when he learnt that out of the total 39 million blind people in the world, a third reside in India. This means that more than 11 million eye pledges are required in India, out of which only 42,000 have been met as of today. The NSS, in collaboration with the Eye Bank Association of India, will be conducting an awareness and pledging campaign with the motto: ‘This Diwali, give someone the gift of light; pledge your eyes.’ (An eye pledge is a commitment to allow your eyes to be donated after death).

Lastly, Yash talked about the Lend Your Voice Initiative, which aims at helping blind children who are admitted in residential blind schools by gifting them audiobooks. Collaborating with Project Awaaz, NSS aims to create the  largest library of audiobooks in India. All students and professors are invited to record their favorite books from any genre and create an audiobook. ‘We want to compensate [for the absence of] a storytelling grandparent in a blind child’s life,’ said Laturiya.

NSS has been busy preparing for these events, coordinating with the parent organisations, and  preparing the props/posters that are to be displayed at the stall. They have also been collecting testimonials from the Director and the Vice Chancellor so as to attract a larger audience to their campaigns.

‘As a club, we have evolved quite a lot over the past few years,’ said Laturiya, explaining that this year, NSS has the support of over 200 BITSian volunteers, and it is still basking in the success of Junoon (their event during BOSM), where they had a record number of over 150 children coming to Pilani for cultural and sport activities. They have also been tying up with a larger number of NGOs year by year.

Yash said that his experience as a coordinator has been and exhilarating and great learning experience for him. He wants the general BITSian to not be afraid of the prospect of passing away some day and instead light up someone’s life after they have lived their own, by pledging their eyes this Oasis.