GUEST LECTURE IN VIT UNIVERSITY ON HIKING

On March 21st, 2016, Santosh, Co-Founder of Bangalore Hikers received an email from Vellore Institute of Technology, where Bangalore Hikers was invited as a chief guest to inaugurate their VIT trekking club 5th anniversary. The Board members of VIT requested a member form Bangalore Hikers to give a guest lecture on Empowerment of Women in Trekking. Perfect theme, I would say.

VIT Events

Since the guest lecture is about Empowerment Women in Trekking, Santosh felt I should drive this. I spoke with one of their board members and understood their expectations for the talk. The students want us to share our passion for trekking through inspirational talks and presentations. They requested us to focus on women empowerment, since they felt the number of women in their club was eventually less when compared to men. So, my lecture was mainly focused on encouraging women towards trekking and made them understand that trekking is not a male ruled passion.

VIT Trekking Club 5th Anniversary Agenda

Though trekking undoubtedly needs a lot of stamina, throughout my speech I carried a message that trekking needs more of will power than stamina by sharing my real experience from the past trekking events. I explained the problem women face during trekking and how to overcome them. I displayed the beautiful pictures clicked during Dudhasagar trip and all the students got impressed with the Serene beauty and got glued to the screen. At the end, they requested us to arrange a trip to Dudhsagar for them. They have also organized many events like Triathlon, Treasure hunt as a part of 5th anniversary and requested me to distribute the prize for the winners.

During the Session

The students requested me to do a workshop on camping and their highly positive spirit did not let me down from sharing all the experience. After the lecture and workshop, I met few of the students and explained them that women are no less as trekkers. One of the Adventure Freak reminisce the formation of VIT Trekking Club and how a group of adventure freaks started this club on 9th July, 2010. It was great to meet the students of VIT University who was very passionate about trekking.

Discussion on camping 

Camping Workshop

I had a request from students to stay with them for a night camping and share the experience of Night Treks, horror stories and memorable trekking experience. I stayed with the students that night and taught them the basis of camping and tents.

All the facilities such as stay, food and travel was arranged by VIT. No doubt, this event is a feather in cap for Bangalore hikers.

Written by: Deepika Muthusamy

Event date: 23rd April, 2016

Lecture by: Deepika Muthusamy

Place: Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu

This article was originally written for Bangalore Hikers and can be found here