Students Immerse in Rural India Through Amrita’s Live-in-Labs Program

Over the past two weeks, students from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham lived and worked alongside rural communities across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Rajasthan as part of the Live-in-Labs Program. Immersed in everyday village life, students adopted participatory and human-centred approaches to understand local realities from within the communities themselves.

Working closely with faculty mentors, students engaged in focus group discussions, awareness sessions, brainstorming exercises, pop-up medical camps, and other field-based activities. These interactions offered invaluable insights into the lived experiences of rural households—insights that cannot be replicated in classrooms alone.

A key learning that emerged from this experiential journey was the persistent challenge of women’s livelihood insecurity. In many communities, women demonstrate willingness, skills, and even education, yet face limited access to opportunities, markets, and resources. Encountering these realities first-hand helped students appreciate the complex social and structural barriers that shape everyday life, laying the foundation for grounded research, meaningful learning, and compassionate problem-solving.

This approach to education reflects a vision articulated by Amma in 2015, when she addressed the United Nations Academic Impact in New York. Emphasising the need to connect learning with service, Amma had said:

“All universities should send their students to impoverished rural villages or city slums for at least one or two months during their education. They would be able to see directly the issues and problems that the poor face. They could then develop solutions and write papers on everything they studied. This would help us to help the poor in the most effective way and, at the same time, awaken compassion in today’s youth.”

More recently, during satsang, Amma shared that while she wishes she could personally visit and comfort those suffering in underprivileged villages, it brings her great happiness to see ashramites, Amrita staff, volunteers, and students dedicating their time and effort to understand and serve those in need.

Insights generated through these student engagements also enrich Amrita’s broader ecosystem of social impact work. They inform and strengthen initiatives led by AMMACHI Labs and the Center for Women’s Empowerment & Gender Equality, particularly in the areas of women’s empowerment and rural livelihoods—ensuring that programmes are shaped in direct response to real community needs.

Through Live-in-Labs, education at Amrita continues to bridge knowledge with empathy, learning with lived experience, and research with service—preparing students not only as professionals, but as compassionate agents of change.