The Delhi School of Social Work Alumni Association is now registered as a Society. It was formally registered as a society in January 2022. While the activities of the Alumni were initiated in 2018 as a Working Group, it has started operating as a registered entity with membership of over 100 alumni and connect with about 600 alumni. The Registered Society has Head of the Department as its Patron. The Executive Committee comprises of alumni as well as faculty members to have joint planning for its programmes. The Association is making all efforts to increase its outreach and bring other alumni into its fold by sharing about its work through a website as well as other means of social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram). A quarterly newsletter is also brought out and circulated among the alumni. With support from the Department, the DSSW Alumni Association is set to scale greater heights. See More at www.dsswalumni.in
Alumni Meeting: The members of the Association interact with each other through WhatsApp groups, Online zoom meetings and face to face meetings whenever possible. On September 10, 2022, 34 alumni of DSSW met in Delhi at CSOI to discuss the strategy and way forward for the Association. The participants included alumni spread across 50 years from 1972 to the 2022 batch where young minds interacted with more experienced ones to see what can be done to enhance the usefulness of the Association towards the Department as well as young professionals. This meeting was followed up by a survey with other alumni to get their views as inputs to develop a strategy for the Association for the next five years. Subsequent meetings happened further in 2023 and 2024. Reach out to the alumni association website for more information on future alumni meet.
Intractions with the Students: Learning for the students can become even better when experiential knowledge learning is added to the existing curriculum. Supportive Learning sessions are part of the schedule of the students. This space has been created by the Department for several years now with the objective of imparting skills to students and giving them a wider perspective of real-life situations related to different areas of social work. Members of the Association are collaborating with the Department to participate in these sessions and share their practical experience on chosen topics. Seven sessions were organised for the students this year. The sessions also included topics like CSR, Social Research and Programme Management. These sessions were also organised to provide soft skills to students so that they are better prepared to find employment at the completion of the course. Therefore, the students were guided on how to set their career goals, how to write their CVs and how to appear for interviews. Mock interviews were held to give them a real time experience of facing interviews.
Alumni Lecture: The Department has been inviting eminent alumni periodically to give a wider perspective to the students by sharing about their own professional experiences and the emerging trends in the area of social work. The 5th lecture was organised 9th December 2022 where Ms Sagari Chabbra, distinguished alumni of DSSW and Director of Hamara Itihaas Archives an eminent author, an award-winning film maker and columnist delivered lecture on Social Work and Communication- My Journey from DSSW onwards. She shared about how she built on the knowledge gained at the Department. On how she worked to lend a voice to many disadvantaged people and also those whose contributions remain invisible to many of us; for example, women freedom fighters for whom she is developing an archive. She further reinforced that the commitment of social workers is extremely valuable to strengthen the voices of marginalised. She shared that it is the social work values and skills of communication which empowered her to work fearlessly. Her session was well appreciated by the students as well as the faculty members.
Counselling Services for Students: It is common knowledge that mental health and well being is becoming a matter of concern for everyone. Its importance has been realised even more when social interactions took a backseat during lockdown period. The alumni of Department of Social Work have had a long association with this area of work. The well-known counselling agency "Sanjeevani" was also founded by DSSW alumni. In the same spirit, the members of the Association as well the faculty have jointly initiated counselling services for the students. Two counsellors who are members of the Alumni Association – Dr Jyotiee Mehraa and Ms. Lakshmi Menon Bhatia - have offered to visit the Department twice in a week to begin with and meet up with the students who maybe having some difficulty in dealing with some personal issues – like many of us do. These services have only begun on a voluntary basis. If found useful, it can be expanded by setting up a counselling centre in future.
Computer Lab in the Library: The alumni have been engaging with the Department and making their contributions from time to time to support ongoing activities to express their gratitude to their alma mater. Last year crowdfunding was done to improve the landscape of the Department. This year a donation contributed by the batch of 1992-94 was used to add to the library resources. A cabin was constructed in the library where 5 computers were installed and some accessories purchased for the library. With the wifi enabled computers in the library, the students will be able to access the wider resource base of Delhi University library network. The students with disability as well as all other students will benefit from this initiative. The partnership between the Department and its alumni – who are spread all across the globe – will only strengthen in the coming years. The Vision of the Association is to make it no. 1 Institution of Social Work in the country.
Usha Narayanan, was born in Yamethin, Burma. She completed her Master is Social Work with a specialty in juvenile delinquency. She was married to K. R. Narayanan, the tenth President of India and was the First Lady of India between 1997- 2002. Usha Narayanan worked on several social welfare programs for women and children in India. She played a key role in women's social welfare activities initiated by the presidency.
Nandita Das is an actress cum director, acted in over 40 featured films in ten different languages. Das was the first Indian inducted into the International Hall of Fame of the International Women's Forum in Washington, DC. She was appointed as Chairperson of the Children's film Society of India in 2009. She was recognized in 2011 for "her sustained contributions to the arts and to the world as one of the most gripping cinema arts leaders of our time. Apart from this she also gave several TEDx talk pertained to social causes. She has been awarded with various National and International Awards which include Filmfare, Film festival etc. for her diverse work.
Prof Manoj Jha completed his Masters from Department of Social Work from Delhi University in 1992 and a PhD in 2000. He has been a Professor at The Department of Social Work, University of Delhi. He is an Indian politician who is a member of Rajya Sabha in Indian Parliament and also the spokesperson of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
An acclaimed writer and film director, Sagari Chhabra's work focuses on social issues that include inter-religious strife and violence, hunger, and human rights. She has been published in South Asian Refugee Watch, Mainstream, The Book Review and The Times of India, among others. Her films are acclaimed globally with the likes being Global Warming for which she was awarded United Nations World Food Day award. She runs 'Towards Alternative Thought and Vision' (TATV) from New Delhi. In 2004 she was awarded the Asia Fellowship and spent a year in Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore researching the surviving Indian freedom fighters in South-East Asia. She is currently engaged in creating the region's first audio, photo and video archive of the freedom struggle
Panduranga Hegde worked as a Chartered Accountant at Delhi and later trained himself in Social work at Delhi School of Social Work. He spent four years in Madhya Pradesh among rural people with Damoh. He was attracted by Chipko Movement led by Sundarlal Bhauguna and got involved with protection of forests and environment. He has been opposing high rise dams constructed for hydroelectric production, in view of environmental damage. Panduranga Hegde is recording the biodiversity of Western Ghats for past several years. He is actively involved in Save Western Ghats campaign. The traditional knowledge of tribes like Siddis are studied and propagated by Panduranga Hegde for conservation of environment.
Kiran Bhatia is an alumni of 1973-75 batch of DSSW. She was founding director of Sanjivini, a pioneering mental health NGO in India, and held regional positions in South Asia with the Ford Foundation and UNICEF as the Regional Child protection and Gender Advisor. She worked with the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK to strengthen Indian State Institutions capacity on gender. She was also a founding executive secretary of Udyogini, an NGO to provide resource-poor women with entrepreneur management competencies in India. She has worked with UNFPA. Her key areas of work have included high level policy advocacy on taking forward commitments to the Beijing Platform for Action and the International Conference on Population and Development agenda.
Feisal Alkazi is an educationist, theatre director and activist. After his Masters in Social Work, he headed Ankur, a society for alternatives in education and taught at the Jamia Mass Communication Research Centre. His group, Ruchika, has directed over 200 plays in Hindi, English, and Urdu. He has written over 20 books, including Rang Biranga Rangmanch.
Geeta Verma Kapila completed her Maters in Social Work in 1974. She started her professional career as a Counselor and Head of Social Work Department at Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan. She served as an honorary consultant to other public and private schools interested in initiating counseling and social work activities. Geeta has worked for over 30 years with the UN. She held various leadership positions at Unicef in countries across different continents – India, Iraq, Sudan Somalia and Kenya and made her contribution especially to the education sector. She worked with UNOPS in Sudan and successfully led its operations despite the challenging socio- political situation that prevailed at that time. She led the sub regional hub of UNOPS located in Kenya with oversight functions for 8 countries. Geeta is also one of the founder members of "Sanjivini Society for mental Health.
Jeeja Ghosh is a qualified social worker (MSW) from the Delhi School of Social Work, Delhi University (Batch: 1993-1995). was born with Cerebral Palsy. She has been a part of the disabled people's movement and is connected to other disability rights activists across India. Her special interest is women with disabilities. She has been felicitated by the West Bengal Commission for Women on the International Women's Day. Ghosh's interests also lie in writing and creative arts especially poetry. A documentary film named I'm Jeeja has been made upon her life which won the National Film Award 2016 from Govt. of India as the best film for social issues in the non-feature film category. She now works for the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy as the Head of Advocacy and Disability Studies.
Kapil Mishra is an Indian politician from Delhi. Before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019, Mishra was an Aam Aadmi Party MLA representing Karawal Nagar (Delhi Assembly constituency) in the Sixth Legislative Assembly of Delhi.
Anjana Om Kashyap is an Indian news anchor working with Hindi news channel Aaj Tak as a Managing Editor. After her graduation, she enrolled at the Delhi School of Social Work, for her post-graduation. Kashyap mentions that the curricula and field visits inculcated a spirit of public activism in her Kashyap started her journalistic career by joining the public broadcaster Doordarshan before moving to Zee News. She then went to News 24 before settling into Aaj Tak.
Martha did a Master of Social Work in 1981 and her Ph.D from Jamia Millia Islamia in 2013. She began her career in 1981 as a literacy worker at Ankur and later broadened her focus into adult education, where she began her lifelong practice of participatory learning methodology. As Director of PRIA's program on Gender Mainstreaming in Institutions, she trained thousands of grassroots women leaders and professionals from different walks of life on issues related to citizen engagement in local governance, gender mainstreaming and sexual harassment. She has also authored several books on subjects like sexual harassment at the workplace, Adult Education, Environment, Occupational Health and Safety, Gender mainstreaming, and Women's empowerment. Unfortunately, she was among 14 people killed in a terror attack on a guest house in Kabul, Afghanistan while conducting a gender training. A Foundation set up in her memory continues to carry forward her pioneering work on gender mainstreaming and adult education, with the overall goal of achieving gender equality in India and around the world.