International Conference and Workshop on "Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship:Getting Started" (ICISE)

International Workshop on Innovation & Social Entrepreneurship: Getting Started

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Occupational Therapy with DMHP

Residents starting work, cutting and shapping

DMHP continues to associate with Department of Social Work, Loyola College. This association found Ms. Ashilin Mary Mathew (MSW SemIV) organising an Occupational Therapy session for the residents of the Occupational Therapy Unit attached to the Mangalapuram PHC. Ashilin trained the residents attached to the PHC to collect suitable bottles, clean it, cut it into shape and paint on it thereafter. The residents enjoyed the session and even painted flowers on the vases; two of them even finally planted flowers in the painted vases. We acknowledge and thank Dr. P.S. Kiran and Team DMHP for the opportunity and the collaboration.Congratulations Ms.Ashilin....!!

Finished Hand Made product

AsR-CYMM Special Invitee

Praveen Varghese Thomas (Research Scholar- Social Work) has been specially invited to ​​represent India at the ASIA REGION Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting (AsR-CYMM) and YOUTH LEADERS FORUM. to be held from 27-30th July 2015 at New Delhi.The summit Youth leaders will engage ministers, senior government officials, youth representatives and select youth development stakeholders from Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore and Sri Lanka. One significant agenda is how it engages youth leaders in the region to explore the establishment of a regional youth platform and strengthen national youth bodies that connect to the upcoming Commonwealth Youth Forum to be held in Malta in 2016.Congratulations Scholar!
Pleased to inform that Praveen VT and Sojin PV (Scholars) are attending an ICSSR Research Methodology at New Delhi.

Sonny Jose

A Rendezvous with Shinu VS, Praise Pious and Anish Pappachan

The rendezvous with Shinu, Praise and Pappie gave the audience three perspectives - one of dedication, hard work and transformation; a second, of learning from down-to-earth life experience; and a third, of opportunities and avenues with IT interface.Anish Pappachan (MSW 2013) fondly christened Pappie conversed on the broad prospects for Social Work being an inclusive discipline. He highlighted the wisdom of the host of task, challenges and programs envisioned on the campus; the most endearing being the compulsive “PIME” approach to everything ‘overdid’ in and out of campus. Praveen V Thomas (research scholar) qualified this as a ‘pipeline’ something you go through, without any options, but ultimately push you into a new phase in life. Anish opened up the immense possibilities offered by IT in the form of Moodle and more recently MOOC which provides access to innumerable course materials offered by overseas Universities. These platforms put you in better stead for employment especially with international agencies such as the UN, UNICEF. He also stressed on the importance of inculcating the confidence in ‘cracking the interview’ by presenting one’s self effectively.

Praise (MSW 2013) confessed of his loyalty to the Loyola, having made it on campus at a crucial juncture of his career; he had to take leave on the third day of his new assignment with Ikiya International, which was into capacity development and skill training of BPL candidates. He stressed on the importance of learning from on hands and from ground realities. He posed that may be he have done ‘very little,’ but whatever little he did, he did  it consciously and from the heart; that taught him a lot. He punctuated on the importance of going out of campus to learn about diverse cultures and languages which would add both to the personality as well as perspectives.
Shinu who was keen on cracking the civil services stressed on the need for determination, dedication and hard work as key to success. He recall of how quiet he was in the initial days, and how a request to cut out a violin by a senior ‘chechi’ helped discover his flair for arts. This artist in him was instrumental in designing and decorating at least four college days and Christmas celebrations and further the Golden Jubilee as well as two NAAC reaccreditation visits.
All of the presenters stress on the need of gaining familiarity with computers and higher order applications of Microsoft Excel, which was a versatile tool of database management. Dr.Sonny mentioned about how this was important, Excel being compatible with most soft wares such as R, SPSS, to name a few. They were also unanimous of the need of documentation skills that one develops through report writing. They stressed on the need to ‘stand out’ during the recruitment process by working right from the beginning with definite plans to a career, designing appropriate resumes and become adept in cracking the interview with suitable illustrations from their experience to establish their credibility in staking claim to the post. They poked Sonny recalling the abundant ‘red notations’ on all their reports as part of travelling through the pipeline. There was an apprehension about the stress owing to workload which Pappie and Praise laughed off in a quick reply “… stress is what you make of things… stress …at Loyola…” They recalled the long hours they slogged in the run up to the golden jubilee and the occasional visits to the beach to get their minds off stressors if any. Viswathi and Aswathy appreciated the speakers regarding the perspectives.
Complied by Viswathi, Sherin and Sonny ... Published by Praveen

Mesmirizing Loyola

An evening at Loyola College is so special, especially when it’s with friends. Though I been in the campus for past few months only the round table discussions are so exciting and it brings life to this campus.  It becomes more interesting and refreshing when the group initiates and reflects on personal experiences which we had during our concurrent field work. Usually our informal discussion gets spicy when the group further comments on certain social issues and other issues of concern. It’s worth to be the part of such discussions after the regular college timing, as the heated up discussions are always an eye-opener for most of us. On a similar ground we had a special invitee today to add Special flavor to our discussions, he is a proud Loyolite and one among our alumni. Mr. Ashish Joseph (2009-11 MSW-batch) who been with us and shared his insights. To me it was not a usual interaction with an alumni which is common in most of the campus. 

Report complied by Roy Joseph, MSW (2014-16)It was all cozy to sit under the mighty ‘badam tree’ and to gaze at him. He never made us to lose interest, he seems to be very informative and vibrant while sharing his experiences. He described how he “survived” at Loyola college days during his initial days at the college and further his learning inside the class and outside the classroom which made him walk tall in the campus after 4 years. He has been associated with Save the Family – INGO project and currently working with Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) The importance of reading and being proactive in social work career was well illustrated to us. Dr. Sonny Jose has contributed to the discussion by complimenting the comments and observations. We been open and didn’t felt reluctant to express our queries which been answered quite interestingly by both Mr. Ashish and Sonny Sir. 

Cancer Detection Camp

Often when doctor utters the word 'cancer', what the patient hears is "you are dying". Although Cancer is a dreaded disease, the fear often arises out of ignorance and misconceptions. Kerala has the highest incidence of cancers in the head and neck regions for men, and cervix and breast for women. The Social Workers Trainees form Loyola College woke up to the realization that many of these cancers were preventable and curable if they been detected and treated at an early stage. It is from this realization that the Trainees organised an Awareness and Early Detection Camp. A team consisting of proactive social work trainees - Anurenj P Kumar, Anjali US, Prasieja Jayakumar and Smitha Jyothirmayi of Semester II MSW (Loyola College) conceptualized and successfully conducted a Cancer Detection Camp at Pothencode, Trivandrum in association with the Regional Cancer Center. The Camp was conducted as part of concurrent field work practicum for MSW students in collaboration with RCC Trivandrum 13th June 2015.
The team was well supported by the RCC Team. We thank the Dr. Paul Sebastian, the Director and the RCC Team for their support. Congratulations and well done Team Loyola!!  

Dr.Jose K. Boban,Principal, Loyola College Of Social Sciences inaugurating Free Cancer Awareness and Detection Camp at Kalloor UP School, Pothencode on 13th June 2015.

---------------------------------------------------------Compilation: Anurenj and Praveen; Editted: Sonny

Green Gifters - World Environment Day June 5

World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated every year on 5 June to raise global awareness to take positive environmental action to protect nature and the planet Earth. It is run by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).To commemorate the same budding social workers from Loyola College of Social Sciences came up with a new concept called 'Green Gifters"The day was celebrated by gifting green to one another. Gifting give a sense of being together and  through gifting the Loyola Social Workers tried to discover the underlining power of a Sanskrit phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (From "vasudhā", the earth; "ēva" = indeed is; and "kutumbakam", family;) which means "the world is one family".  Its high time for us to start gifting green to each other and to protect the earth by holding hands as a family does. It is in this backdrop the budding social workers went and met people in Trivandrum city and tried to spread the culture of gifting green by being with them and convincing them to take a sampling to home. The team could reach more than hundreds of people in the city and could convince them to be a 'Green Gifter'