Edu.Deptt & ROTTO PGI’s Project “Be the Change-Be an Organ Donor” Receives Good Response

By 121 News

Chandigarh 10^th November:- Showcasing amazing artistic skills, using their colors and crayons deftly, the students of Govt. Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 20-D  Chandigarh sensitively portrayed their thoughts  on the theme 'Organ Donation' in a painting competition organized in the school premises here today. 

This painting competition was a part of an ongoing student engagement project 'Be the Change, Be an Organ Donor', launched earlier by Deptt. of School Education, Chandigarh Administration in collaboration with Regional Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization (ROTTO), PGI. 

The teachers as well as the students showed an enthusiastic response in all the six schools including Govt. Model Senior Secondary Schools of Sector 46, 19, 18, 8 and 23 already covered under the project. Today, it was the seventh school wherein the infotainment session to orient the senior students about the noble cause of Organ Donation was organized. 

Enthused by the response, Anita Sharma, Nodal Officer-Vocational Education, Education Deptt., Chandigarh Administration stated that this is a social responsibility. We must orient the students about this altruistic cause as they can act as 'change agent' to inculcate awareness among family members to promote Organ Donation. Hence, we would like to cover maximum number of schools under the project.

Prior to the competition, Nilakshi Sharma, Transplant Coordinator from ROTTO PGI shared about the concept to around 150 participating students. During the session, Nirmal, one of the students from 12^th class who had lost her mother few days back due to heart failure, made everyone very emotional as she shared her mother's last wish, she lost her mother, who strongly believed in the cause but we could not fulfill her wish due to lack of awareness on her demise. Now as she is aware, she would try to fulfill her wish by disseminating the information and will start this by pledging myself for organ donation. Following her example, 19 more students in the age of 18 and above pledged for organ donation after the session.  

Complementing the initiative, Parminder Kaur, Programme Officer NSS,  stated that she strongly support this life saving cause and will try to organize multiple activities to propagate this message across the student community.