CHENNAI: Not many students get an opportunity to solve community problems with their academic knowledge.

When a team of students of Alpha Arts and Science College, Chennai, was offered freedom to think beyond the classroom, it proved its mettle and emerged as `SIFE India National Champion-2006.'

Helping rural people

The students presented their projects, which helped to solve economic and social problems of rural people, at the 3rd annual Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) India National Cup competition 2006 held in Mumbai on Sunday sponsored by leading IT company, Syntel. Some of the projects that won the team the chance to represent India in SIFE International World Cup to be held at Paris in September were empowerment of Palmyra juice tappers and education assistance to rural girls.

The team, including Arundati Ramanathan, D. Depak, V.B. Rajakumar, R. Krishna Chaitanya, N. Sriram and R.S. Sindhu, helped by their faculty adviser Josephine Jeyashanti, conducted seminars and raised Rs. 1.92 lakh along with sponsors to procure licences to Palmyra juice tappers, who were frequently arrested by police under suspicion; besides establishing a co-operative society, and other projects.

Scholarship

Besides helping 20 village girls to obtain scholarships, they also marketed an herbal bread spread from aloe vera, `Nutriva,' and managed a profit of Rs. 1.30 lakh. This in turn raised the economic standard of poor families dependent on it. The competing teams presented the results of their outreach projects annually at regional and national contests and were chosen based on the effect of the projects.

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