The development of villages was the prime theme of the Amritavarsham60 and keeping in tune with the spirit, the Amrita University on Friday announced ‘Amrita Live-in-Labs,’ an experimental learning programme which gives opportunity for students to reside in Indian villages and learn the problems faced by the rural population.
The programme, which encourages the youth to live and experience the problems in the country’s villages, was floated by University’s Amrita Centre for International Programmes.
The scheme envisages students of Amrita University as well as international students from some of the best universities in the world to reside in Indian villages for six months and study its problems in areas including health, hygiene, energy, water, waste and environment. It also aims to define projects that seek to address the problems, devise solutions, implement, test and eventually demonstrate innovative solutions, a spokesperson of the University said.
As part of the programme, Amrita University signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with University of California (UC) to improve research and student exchanges.
The signatories included UC Executive Vice-Chancellor Suresh Subramani and Amrita University Vice-Chancellor P Venkat Rangan.
Others present at the function included UC Director of International Affairs Michelle L Hermas, Director of Amrita Centre for International Programmes Maneesha V Ramesh, centre co-director Krishnashree Achuthan and centre programme manager P Manoj.
The MoU with University of California will also facilitate exchanges of faculty, under-graduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral scholars, joint research projects and publications, virtual labs, exchange of publications, materials and information and special short-term programmes and visits. A statement from the University said that the idea behind the Amrita Live-in-Labs came early this year when Mata Amritanandamayi addressed the 150th birthday celebrations of spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda in Delhi. In her address she had suggested that at least one child from every family served in rural areas for one year after their graduation.
She recommended government funds for such a programme noting that such initiatives would help awaken compassion among the youth apart from uplift of the poor.