Updated on: Monday, August 03, 2009
The Institute of Foreign Trade, Kolkata, held an NGO meet on July 25, to discuss their plans for action in the upcoming year vis-à-vis the social awareness part of the skills taught at IIFT.
Among the NGO’s attending the event were Bikash Bharati Welfare Society, Tangra Maitri Society, The Calcutta Samaritans, Tiljala Society of Human and Educational Development, AIWZ East Calcutta Constituency, Helpage India, etc.
K Rangarajan, head, IIFT, said, “The objective of this seminar is to help realise that we have a talent pool of youth. Moreover, while they are pursuing their MBA, we help them to use their skills best on a humane level.”
Munish Bhargava, course coordinator, IIFT, said, “We have a motive to familiarise the students with social issues. While the business aspect is important, the corporate cannot exist without the social. The main motive is to sensitise them about public policies and issues and how NGO’s work.”
Bhargava also set down guidelines for the upcoming year. He said, “We are definitely trying to remedy the dwindling seriousness of the students. The NGO interaction will have more weightage in the syllabus and from August 2009 to December 2009, we are increasing the period of NGO interaction to four weeks and also limiting the number of students involved.”
K T Chacko, director, IIFT, said, “IIFT wants its students to have a value system that is more complete to further improve social efficacy of the programme. We are planning a concurrent feedback system with the NGO’s and help take this programme a step further.”
Signing off, Chacko said, “Greed is the reason for the economic meltdown. We have faced a loss of fundamental ethics. For this monitoring is required, and a proactive initiative. This what we are concentrating on.”