PEACE CC, from west zone, India collaborated with Dr. T.D. Singh's Institute of Science and Religion, Navi Mumbai to organize a customized workshop cum seminar for 760 engineering college students at RAIT, a leading campus in Maharashtra on Sept. 22-23. Prof. Jayanti Chavan was invited by the college management during the second week of Sept. to help them address some of the burning issues among student community such as depression, stress, suicides, lack of interest in studies, disturbance due to economy etc. and further to provide valuable counselling to gain self confidence, to excel in studies, to remain open to value and useful education beyond classroom, accepting importance of spiritual therapies for inner calmness and peace etc.
After several interactions and gathering relevant inputs from core faculty, Prof. Jayanti offered to provide a customized syllabus on the theme 'Think High, Aim High, Work Hard - The mantra of Successful life' to be covered in two full days and it was accepted by the management.
Because of the large size of students, the workshop and seminar was offered in parallel classes with four resource persons namely Prof. Jayanti, Mr. Millindar, Dr. John and Dr. Suhas Chavan. The course covered live video presentations connecting the students to the reality of their life off the virtual world, which they are normally accustomed too. This triggered some brain storming among the students. Besides, the seminar covered inspiring digital counselling that guided them to aim high and that how they can successfully climb upwards in their life even after a failure. Thus, one of the main highlight of the workshop was providing the students the overview of life's journey that is beyond student's phase and giving them step by step tips to awaken their positive qualities. The process guided them how it was possible to automatically subdue all negative tendencies and thoughts that arise in a student's life due to different stressors. As part of this process, they were also guided to focus on developing special skills that can aid them in their career and also to think high about life's goal and thereby achieve it. They were also introduced to URI, awareness about international day of Peace and the role of youth in spreading Peace in the society through their own example.
The feedback gathered after the workshop was very encouraging to all of us. Firstly, they acknowledged the efforts taken by our team to organize a diverse workshop seminar that combined digitized education and education inside & outside the classroom specifically designed for the student community. When asked about the lessons learnt, there was unanimous answer from their side of accepting the fact that they need to think high about life of which they were ignorant. Further they promised that they would put all efforts to follow the counselling provided for studies and building self confidence and practice peaceful living.
