Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri Campus, has initiated Serve an Hour (SaH) program in an effort to bring its students to explore the real creativity within. This platform is a great way to channel the energy of youth and encourages a future interest to serve society in a wide variety of scientific fields.
Every first-year class from the School of Engineering, School of Arts and Sciences, School of Biotechnology and School of Ayurveda, is divided into groups with each group having a certain topic. These topics range over a wide array of subjects that cover ethical, social and environmental issues. After selecting the topic, the group does research on the topic and also tries to come up with solutions to combat these issues.
SaH helps students to be aware of their own cultural heritage in such a way that they themselves create a cultural consciousness within. For this purpose, all the students selected socially relevant issues and they conducted an awareness programme in the schools located near the campus. An exhibition was designed to allow students the opportunity to express themselves through art and creativity which captured the attention of everyone. Following the school visits, the students then presented their work to their fellow students and teachers in the form of an exhibition. All in all, this program gave students a platform to show off their creative talents and give back to society.
Based on very relevant themes each batch made handicrafts, short video presentations, object models, speaking pictures, etc., to introduce their ideas. They even made a chair out of waste plastic bottles. It was then presented to our beloved Chancellor of the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Amma, who blessed them by sitting on it.
The dance programme conducted by the first year students of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Department of Commerce & Management, Department of Physics, Department of Mathematics, Department of Chemistry and Department of English, as part of their exhibition, were a rare blending of various dance forms from different cultures and thus reflected their theme of exhibition.
“It helped me to gain knowledge through an inquiry-based, interactive educational experience,” said Amritesh, first year, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amritapuri.
“The children are capable of doing wonders…such classes can really contribute to the development of society…we are glad that we got this opportunity… Thanks Amrita,” shared Malavika, first year, Department of English, Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Amritapuri.
The school students accepted the activities wholeheartedly and one of the students from GHS Karunagappally shared,”The short films and presentations by these senior students were really useful and we expect such more contributions in future from Amrita.”
