Discover yourself to connect with society, NSS volunteers urged

Young people are active and busy and have huge aspirations. But do they know who they are? Do they understand what they owe to the society?

            These questions were raised at the valedictory ceremony of the week-long National Integration Camp (NIC) organized by the Regional Directorate of NSS and the SOA (Deemed to be University) here on Sunday.

            “It is important that you discover yourself and it will help you to connect to the society,” Prof. Soumendra Mohan Patnaik, Vice-Chancellor of the Utkal University, told more than 200 NSS volunteers drawn from 21 universities spread across ten states including hosts Odisha.

            “Many youngsters have the ambition to become extra-ordinary, but I feel it is an ordinary wish. If you wish to remain an ordinary person, then it is extra-ordinary. You can scale greater heights by remaining ordinary,” he told the students adding “what matters is that you should have love for others and live for others.”

Exhorting the young students to honour values in life, Prof. Patnaik said it was not wrong to earn money and be rich, but one should be sensitive to the surroundings. “Earn money, but for the society,” he said.

            Prof. Ashok Kumar Mohapatra, eminent neuro surgeon and SOA’s Director (Health Programmes) and eminent social worker Jagadanand, were the guests of honour at the programme which was presided over by the Vice-Chancellor of SOA  Prof. Amit Banerjee.

Regional Director of NSS R Gokulkrishnan, SOA’s Dean (Students’ Welfare) Dr. Jyoti Ranjan Das  and SOA’s NSS Programme Coordinator Dr. Nachiketa K Sharma also spoke.