LIKE every year Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) joined the world, in celebrating the Human Rights Day on December, 10. This year, students of KISS celebrated the Human Rights Day by creating a Human Chain that cover almost 25 km. ‘Human Chain for Humanity’ was unique, for this it is said world’s longest human chain by 20,000 tribal/indigenous children who demonstrated the theme, ‘My Voice Counts’. This created an awareness amongst the people of Odisha. The human chain starting from KIIT University campus covered almost the entire capital city Bhubaneswar of Odisha, in a radius of 25 kms.
Eminent personalities including Damodar Rout, Minister, Health & Family Welfare, Dr PK Patasani, MP; Bijay Mohanty, MLA; Anant Narayan Jena, Mayor, Bhubaneswar; Bihuprasad Rath, Director, OTV and Achuta Samanta, founder, KIIT & KISS, were present on the occasion.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948 was the first Global enunciation of Human Rights and one of the first major achievements of the United Nations. Since then, this day is observed in all countries showing world’s concern for the underprivileged section of the society. Combating poverty, deprivation and exclusion is not a matter of charity and it does not depend on how rich or how poor the country is. By taking poverty as a matter of human rights obligation, the world will have a better chance of abolishing this scourge in our lifetime. Poverty eradication is an achievable goal. What the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour said in 2006, still holds good. Establishment of KISS, Bhubaneswar, by Achyuta Samanta is the right step towards eradication of poverty through education. The institute with the provision to give food, accommodation, health care and education from Kindergarten to Post graduation (KG to PG) absolutely free, now houses 20,000 children. It is an effort to bring the most underprivileged children to the main stream. (FOC)
