Lecture series with DSSW students : The Alumni Association of Department of Social Work has launched a lecture series for the students in 2019. 

The first in this series was given by Dr Niraj Seth on September 27, which was attended by about 50 students from both previous and final year, faculty members and alumni. The topic of the lecture was ‘Experiential journey – From DSSW to making a difference to lives of people’. Niraj Seth is from the 1980-82 batch and has work experience of over 35 years across various institutions. While interacting with the students, she focused on her role in four areas – as a school social worker, a project manager, advocacy and corporate social responsibility. She shared anecdotes from each of these areas and her evolution as a professional social worker. 

Alumni Connect
While the Association was registered in January 2022, the ball was set rolling in 2019 by forming a Working Committee of members from different batches. Prof. Neera Agnimitra, as Patron of the Committee, provided the initial impetus and clearly articulated the intent of the Department to work closely with the alumni. Prof. Pamela Singla, her successor, has continued with this support and collaborated with the Alumni in organising several activities at the Department which include alumni lectures, landscape improvement and supportive learning classes.
Two Alumni meets have been organized in the last three years. The first one was held on February 15, 2020 which was organized at the Department and attended by 85 alumni. The students participated enthusiastically by joining the alumni and put together a small cultural programme. . The second meet was held online due to restrictions on physical meetings. This was organized on October 1, 2021.
The basis of networking is developing a database. In the last few months concerted efforts have been made to reach out to our alumni. It has proven to be challenging but a good start has been made. We intend to continue with our efforts to strengthen this database and provide space for networking among the alumni and connect with the Department.
We have also been bringing out quarterly newsletters to share about our activities. Though these newsletters we intend to highlight the work being done by our alumni and mention about some topic related to social work for reflection and share about the activities of the Department and the Association. Three newsletters have already been brought out. Those who have missed reading these can do so by accessing these from this website.

Crowdfunding for landscape improvement of the Department
One of the most enjoyable and significant activities carried out this year was landscaping of the campus. It started as a response to a remark made by Prof Aruna Bhardwaj during the Annual Day celebration when she reminisced how she along with other faculty members worked with the maalis to make the campus look vibrant, full of flowers and healthy plants. The Department has taken several initiatives in the past such as creation of a herbal garden, planting roses, cleanliness drives with help from students. The alumni wanted to make their contribution. Through crowd funding and contributions by the batch of 1993, – in the memory of their batchmate Juno Srivastava who lost his life in a terrorist attack in SriLanka – the Association carried out a landscaping improvement project which will be taken forward by the students of Garden Committee of the Department. This intervention, although small, helped a lot in engaging the alumni with the Alumni with the Department, directly and indirectly.

Documentation of interventions by the alumni to meet the COVID challenge
The COVID pandemic in 2020 spread across countries at an unexpected rate and almost brought the whole world to a halt. Besides being a medical enigma, Covid-19 in many ways has become a human tragedy impacting lives of many economically and socially. It created a situation where we saw loss of lives, loss of jobs and employment, deep insecurity, mental health issues and impact across different aspects of human life. However, this situation has also brought out an unprecedented will to reach out to support those in need. Many individuals came forward to do whatever they could to provide relief to those impacted by the spread of COVID-19. These also included our alumni. Therefore, the Association felt that it was imperative to acknowledge the efforts made by our alumni during these unprecedented times. A detailed questionnaire was rolled out to gather details of experiences and contributions made by the alumni. Different means of communication, such as Emails, SMSs, WhatsApp Messages, personal networking were used to ensure we are able to reach out to as many alumni as possible. We received individual stories, which helped us to present more than 30 case studies – not only across various states within India but from other countries too. The document helped us understand how the alumni were participating in relief work, the innovations they have brought and the challenges they faced while carrying out the activities. We Support document, which is a compilation of the case studies was launched on August 14, 2020. The document has been uploaded on this website for people to review.

Engaging with the Students
The Department has been organizing supportive learning classes for the students for the last many years. It is a very good way of giving exposure to the students about the field experiences by enabling interactions with relevant resource persons. The Alumni Association is collaborating with the Department by organizing classes by our alumni on various topics related to theory being taught in classrooms and self-development. Some of these topics include Self -Development, Social Research, CSR and NGO formation. The knowledge of field experience and soft skills provided to the students will help in preparing them for placements by providing them insights about the field and expectations of the employers.
In addition to this alumni lectures have been organized for the students by our alumni on topics like mental health, community workers and medical social work. We will continue to organize these lectures depending on the requirements of the Department.