Delhi University’s Indraprastha College for Women inaugurated its Centre for Inter-Disciplinary Studies on Thursday as it also launched an exceptional outreach programme called “Project Hum Sab”.
The fourth learning and research centre in the College conceptualised by college principal Babli Moitra Saraf would be adopting the migrant labour community of construction workers for a year, under Hum Sab. Project Hum Sab views at enabling skills, information and knowledge to the men, women, youth and children and also develop values of social responsibility and voluntariarism in the college community.
“The project involves student and faculty volunteers of college from various academic disciplines with their attendant corpus of knowledge, skills, methodology and tool of analysis…Hum Sab will also draw on experts, NGOs and State bodies to achieve its goal,” stated the vision document shared by Saraf.
While the project looks at “sustainable development at margins”, college aims to collaborate with agencies in areas of education and literacy, counselling and gender sensitisation, physical exercise and sports, developing skills and hobbies, health and nutrition, disease and simple preventive measures, hygiene and sanitation, waste management and garbage disposal.
The college would also provide the material and human resource for this project and it is funded by the governing body of the college.
The IP college also hosted an inaugural event Dilli: Perspectives on Delhi with artists and activists speaking on the cultural heritage of the city, access to resources, history and environment. The first in a series to be held every semester, was a day-long conference with a grand line up of speakers like Sohail Hashmi, Manoj Mishra, Sunil Kumar, performer Fouzia Bibi and film maker Shounak Sen
The Hum Sab project also looks at honing the skills of students in multi-disciplinary research by encouraging deployment of research methodology, ethical awareness in research, observation, documentation, data collection and analysis and writing of reports.