Live-in-Labs Program Immerses Amrita Students in Rural Realities Across India

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. The immersive initiative enabled students to engage deeply with everyday village life, adopting participatory and human-centred approaches to understand local realities.

During the field immersion, students and faculty collaborated closely with community members through focus group discussions, awareness sessions, brainstorming exercises, pop-up medical camps, and other hands-on, field-based activities. These engagements offered students invaluable insights into the lived experiences of rural households and the complex socio-economic dynamics that shape them.

A recurring theme that emerged from the fieldwork was women’s livelihood insecurity—a challenge marked not by lack of willingness, skills, or even education, but by limited access to opportunities. Such firsthand exposure forms the foundation for meaningful learning, grounded research, and compassionate problem-solving, reinforcing the importance of experience-driven education.

This approach reflects a vision articulated by Amma in 2015, when she addressed the United Nations Academic Impact in New York. She urged universities to connect learning with lived experience and service, emphasizing that students should spend time in impoverished villages or urban slums to directly understand the challenges faced by marginalized communities.

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

The insights gained through these student immersions further enrich Amrita’s broader ecosystem of social impact initiatives. They provide valuable perspectives that inform the work of AMMACHI Labs and CWEGE, particularly in shaping programs focused on women’s empowerment and sustainable rural livelihoods—ensuring that interventions remain responsive to real community needs and grounded in on-the-ground realities.