Abstract
All the four Jesuit Colleges in Tamil Nadu, India are trying to reach out to the rural masses. They are autonomous colleges and hence can operate to modify the curriculum to suit the needs of various outreach programmes that reach out to the rural masses badly in need of concern and attention. St. Xavier's College, Palayamkottai; Arulanandar College, Karumathur; St. Joseph's College, Trichirappalli and Loyola College, Chennai, are the four Jesuit colleges in Tamil Nadu. These are well known colleges in Tamil Nadu, India.
All these colleges have outreach programmes: in particular, STAND (Students Training and Action for Neighbourhood Development), ARISE (Arulanandar Rural Initiative for Social and Education), LEAP (Loyola
Education Action Programme) and SHEPHERD (Science and Humanities for People's Development). These programmes are carried out by the college students with the guidance of the staff besides the government sponsored NSS activities.
LEAP has adopts slums in the city for its operations. Other colleges have adopted villages for their operation. Though each college operates the outreach programme in its own way, I have codified it under one category with the available information. Certain facts are more applicable to one college than the other.
