Inside Rizvi College's lost and found: A story of community and goodwill
The college has made it a policy that whoever finds a lost item and deposits it to the office, receives a gift from its owner.
Bandra’s Rizvi College of Arts, Science & Commerce has an intriguing lost and found policy where owners have to gift something to those who return lost items. Hundreds — perhaps thousands — of students, staff and visitors pass through any college campus daily, so it’s inevitable that some items will be left behind.
Water bottles, books, phones and cash tend to be the most common forgotten belongings but what happens to all the unclaimed items?
These lost and found items are kept at the principal’s office near the building’s entrance. The most unusual forgotten items are cash and eyeglasses. Principal Prof Ashfaq Ahmad Khan told The Free Press Journal (FPJ) that they also often found expensive phones.
Khan told the FPJ that the policy is whether it’s a student, a teaching staff or a non-teaching staff, whoever comes and returns any lost item found, showing goodwill, is entitled to get a gift from the owner of that item
according to the latter’s capacity.
“To help reunite lost articles with their owners, college staff will advertise them and announce them at their classes,” Khan said. Any items that remain unclaimed for a long time are donated to a local charity.
Mobile phones are an item that doesn’t remain separated from their owners for long. When a lost mobile phone is turned into the office, the staff try to track down the owner through the
phone’s incoming messages. Typically, the mobile phone owner also simultaneously searches for their device.
“These poor kids come running down in a panic, not wanting to go home and tell their parents they lost their phone in college somewhere,” the principal added.
To encourage students to retrieve lost items, they receive a chocolate as a gift from the owner. The principal credits this policy for fostering goodwill among students.