BENGALURU: Combining community service and prioritising mental health of its students, the CMR University on Wednesday announced that it will set up an animal shelter, ‘Action Compassion and Service for Animals’ (ACSA), on its campus.
It will also introduce a Community Service Programme in the Common Core Curriculum. All undergraduate and postgraduate students have to compulsorily take up a minimum of 25 hours of community service per semester from this year.
ACSA is claimed to be the first such animal shelter within a university in the country with students being made to volunteer. The shelter is set to be launched in November, during the university’s Founder’s Day celebrations. “We’ve partnered with various NGOs. We will take up the rehabilitation of dogs. The shelter will be run by students, but we will have an on-site veterinarian and other staff. We are all animal lovers, and that is why we thought it would be a good idea to build a shelter on the campus,” said university Vice-Chancellor Dr Tristha Ramamurthy.
The shelter will house dogs that are aged and not fit to be adopted, as well as those that have been injured and in need of rehabilitation, Dr Ramamurthy said. “We will have adoption drives if there is interest,” she said.