Date:20/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/20/stories/2008032058110300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

TB awareness billboards backdrop for theatre contest

Special Correspondent

A sign of college students’ social consciousness

Photo: K. Pichumani

Signature support: Students sign on a billboard on Wednesday endorsing the awareness campaign on tuberculosis. —

CHENNAI: An inter-collegiate street theatre contest scheduled at the Music Academy on Monday gets a most unusual backdrop — billboards with thousands of signatures endorsing the awareness campaign on tuberculosis (TB).

The concept of display boards as a medium of awareness creation was thought up by students of the Postgraduate Department of Social Work at D. G. Vaishnav College, Arumbakkam.

Apart from putting up signboards with a fact-sheet on TB, students also used the panels to mobilise signatures as an expression of support to the cause. The signature campaign was held across 13 colleges and 10 community health centres. Over 15,000 signatures were mobilised on the 23 panels, said Abhijit and Praveen, first year students at the Social Work department.

Messages in Tamil

The display boards kept at health centres had the messages in Tamil.

The signboards will serve as backdrop for “Ennal Mudiyum”, the inter-collegiate street play competition on March 24 (World TB Day).

The awareness campaign was undertaken under the LIVELABS (Learning to Initiate and Visualise Liaisonary Action to benefit Society) programme of the institution and supported by the NGO REACH.