Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is committed to empowering communities through education and capacity building as part of its vision to foster societal transformation. Aligned with SDG 4, the institution undertakes a wide range of educational outreach activities beyond campus, addressing diverse community needs. These initiatives include tailored lectures, skill-building workshops, and interactive demonstrations conducted in local schools and underserved communities.
The university leverages its multidisciplinary expertise to run both ad hoc and programmed outreach efforts, often involving our student volunteers. Programs such as literacy drives, STEM education camps, environmental awareness workshops, and digital literacy initiatives bridge the educational gap in rural and urban communities. Through these impactful projects, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham continues to cultivate inclusive learning opportunities, empowering individuals and fostering long-term societal development.
A.1. Training of Trainers Program – Sarai Village
On 13 July 2024, a five-day Training of Trainers (ToT) programme concluded in Sarai Village, Uttar Pradesh, as part of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s community educational outreach beyond campus. The programme focused on skill development and livelihood training for local women. Following the training, 27 women registered for the upcoming Vocational Education and Training (VET) programme, expressing interest in jewellery making, small-scale plate manufacturing, and the production of candles, incense sticks and agarbatti.
A.2. Educational Outreach Beyond Campus: Mega Tinkering Day 2025
On 12 August 2025, AMMACHI Labs staff members Gayathri Manikutty, Pranav Prabha and Archana S mentored school students at two Atal Tinkering Lab schools in the Kollam region: Amrita Vidyalayam Puthiyakavu and Lakeford School. This local outreach was part of Mega Tinkering Day 2025, organised in partnership with the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog. Students participated in a hands-on challenge to design and build a DIY vacuum cleaner using simple, everyday materials, applying principles of physics, engineering design and problem-solving.
A.3. Educational Outreach Beyond Campus: Life Enrichment Education Session
On 30 September 2025, Amrita Center for Women’s Empowerment & Gender Equality (CWEGE) in collaboration with the Vishwakarma Navothan Foundation, conducted a Life Enrichment Education (LEE) session at VKR Public School in Punalur. The session engaged 40 students in activities on personal hygiene and handwashing practices, using videos, live demonstrations and group discussions. Students also formed groups to explore social issues in their communities, with activities designed to develop communication, teamwork and problem-solving skills.
B.1. Seaweed Project: From Mobilization to Action: October 2024 – December 2025
Launched two years ago in collaboration with the Transworld Group of Companies, the Seaweed Cultivation Training Project equips women and women’s groups with skills to develop sustainable livelihoods through seaweed farming and related enterprises.
1.1 Amrita students closely involved throughout 2025.
Social work students conducted a 20-day fieldwork programme in February 2025 across six coastal villages. They delivered 31 awareness sessions on marine conservation, seaweed farming, and sustainable practices, conducted digital literacy workshops for local residents, particularly women, and held two school programmes on ocean conservation and substance-abuse prevention.
From September 12–18, 2025, 55 MSW and BSW students from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Amritapuri campus participated in a seven-day rural camp across four villages in Rameswaram: Olaikuda, Sambhai, Vadakadu, and Munaikadu. Key activities included awareness sessions for women on biodiversity, seagrass restoration, and seaweed farming; school programmes on ocean protection and pollution control; community pledge ceremonies; socio-economic and community surveys; and coastal conservation drives. Students, community leaders, and the Indian Navy jointly restored 0.9 hectares of seabed, while cleanup activities cleared 0.1889 hectares. The camp combined academic learning, fieldwork, and community engagement while contributing to coastal conservation and ongoing research.
23 Amrita Vidyalayam schools took part in the Seaweed Drying & Storage Challenge, building more than 30 prototypes.
1.2 International students and experts also worked alongside the women.
June 2025: Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Live-in-Labs® programme, in collaboration with the University of Arizona, conducted community-based educational activities with women in Soliyakudi, Tamil Nadu, focused on marine conservation and sustainable use of ocean resources. Through interactive learning, storytelling, coastal mapping, swimming instruction and hands-on seagrass restoration, participants developed practical knowledge of marine ecosystems and conservation. The two students from Arizona also trained 18 women in water safety.
Empowering coastal women through seaweed culinary innovation: Chef Harsh Dixit from The Private Chefs Club visits Rameswaram in October 2025
1.3 From Products to Markets
Women trained in seaweed pickles and soaps competed in village contests and sold their products at exhibitions.
1.4 Taking the Model to Karnataka
Building on the Tamil Nadu experience, the Centre for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality’s team began expanding the women-led seaweed model to other states.
In November 2025, meetings in Karnataka with the Uttara Kannada Zilla Panchayat, NRLM, the Fisheries and Forest Departments, and Karnatak University secured institutional backing. Field assessments across Kumta, Ankola, and Karwar then identified Gabit Keni, Mudga Beach, and the Majali backwaters as viable sites for women-led seaweed and bivalve mariculture.
B.2. AServe Village Project (Former 101 Village Project)
The AServe Village project aims to transform villages across India into self-reliant communities through initiatives including education for children and adults, vocational and life skills training, and women’s empowerment. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham developed educational content and materials for 25 vocational and life skills courses, translated into six regional languages and being deployed across 21 states.
The following events took place in July 2024-Dec 2025:
2.1 Educational Outreach in Dunda Village, Uttarakhand
In November 2024, AMMACHI Labs’ Amrita COVID Community Resilience Resource Centre (CCRRC) conducted a two-week pre-training program in Dunda Village, Uttarakhand, to develop women’s entrepreneurial and business management skills. The curriculum covered goal setting, business venture identification, cost and pricing strategies, customer service, risk management, and team building with savings. Following the training, participants selected mushroom cultivation as their business venture, and 30 women enrolled in the C-VET practical training course starting 3 December 2024.
Educational Outreach in Valaramkunnu, Wayanad
Amrita University’s Live-in-Labs programme conducted a seven-day practical training programme in Valaramkunnu, a remote tribal village in Wayanad, Kerala, for seven women aged 18–24 from the Kurichya and Paniya communities. The training focused on lemongrass oil extraction, including equipment operation, safety procedures and hands-on practice, equipping participants with skills to use locally available resources for income generation.
3. STI Hub
Improving Tribal Livelihoods, Education & Sustainability
Under a grant from the Department of Science and Technology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, in collaboration with Mizoram University, plans to build Science, Technology & Innovation Hubs in the districts of Aizawl and Serchhip to promote sustainable livelihoods through Capacity Building and Skill Development for tribal communities.
The initiative focuses on livelihood empowerment through a food-processing incubator for nutrition-based foods and Ayurveda-inspired health products, along with skill modules for livelihood development and knowledge transfer. It also includes documenting tribal knowledge systems and healing practices, providing digital literacy to rural communities, training peer ambassadors in preventive health awareness, and building skills and capacity. Read more about the achievements as of March 2025.
5. Med SIM
MedSIM is an e-learning platform offering computer-based medical simulations using 2D and 3D animations, virtual patient cases, deliberate practice, and feedback for skills development. It supports undergraduate medical education and healthcare professionals’ training. Initiated 14 years ago, the project has developed over 100 virtual cases, 95 simulations, and 20 disease-specific databases, and organised nine workshops.
In October 2024, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, in partnership with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), hosted a workshop on emerging healthcare technologies, attended by over 330 participants in person and online. Amrita CREATE representatives Dr. Romita Jinachandran and Ms. Vinila Rebecca Jacob demonstrated MedSIM 2.0, a virtual skills lab and patient simulation platform jointly developed by AIIMS Bhubaneswar, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and CDAC Thiruvananthapuram, showcasing its four training modules, including virtual reality clinical cases.
