AmritaSREE – Community-Based Self Help Groups for Self-Reliance, Education, & Employment

After the 2004 Tsunami, the schooling patterns of fish and other marine life were disrupted. Moreover, fisherpeople who knew no other trade or skill were now deeply fearful of going out to the sea, leading to a livelihood crisis for the community surrounding the university. Recognizing the urgent need for an alternative income, the Chancellor initiated a community-based self-help-group (SHG) program known as Amrita SREE: Amrita Self-Reliance, Education & Employment Program. The training program focused on empowering women through innovative financial strategies leading to their financial independence, emotional strength, and social respect. Amrita is working to equip unemployed and economically vulnerable women with the skills and means to set up small-scale, cottage-industry businesses to provide vocational education, start-up capital, marketing assistance, and access to microcredit loans and micro-savings accounts from government-regulated banks. Research has shown that empowering women with equal economic opportunity is one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty. The first SHG has now grown to a network of over 13,000 SHGs with over 250,000 women across the country. 

Haptic Devices for Skill Development

One of the major challenges faced by the rural population is the lack of adequate skills and education. One of the main hindrances in this regard is that they have intermittent money at their disposal to acquire training to be eligible to earn a livelihood. Also, the lack of qualified instructors or resources in the village makes it difficult for the villagers to get access to quality education. 

Encouraged by the Chancellor, the team at Amrita used haptic technology to address the need for effective and affordable training in hands-on vocational skills for men and women in developing communities. In the early 2000s, Haptic technology was expensive and primarily used in the medical field. However, with the guidance of the Chancellor, Haptic technology has been efficiently used to provide accessible and affordable vocational training to rural communities. 

Haptic technology as a modality takes advantage of the sense of human touch by applying forces and vibrations to provide life-like experiences to the user. Pioneering contributions in the area of haptic systems for skill assessment and guidance for applications such as vocational education and training, physical rehabilitation, and medical simulation. Specific research areas include haptic rendering, haptic devices, haptic guidance, and shared control schemes for haptic simulation. More than 3000 women have been trained using haptic devices in vocational education.

Women Empowerment Through Innovative Vocational Education & Training 

In partnership with the United Nations Democracy Fund, Amrita researchers, the Women Empowerment (WE) Project offered computerized- Vocational Education Training (cVET) and Life Enrichment Education (LEE) to women with low levels of literacy living in remote, impoverished communities over a period of 18 months. The project reached over 3,000 women in the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and over 900 in other states, totaling 4,000 women. This blended approach aimed to ensure that the students received required social and technical knowledge as well as the confidence and guidance to use their learned skills. The LEE curriculum includes courses on gender equality, community participation, health and family entrepreneurship, communication skills, critical thinking, and decision-making. The project brought in the development of state-of-the-art haptics technology for advanced vocational education and training and innovative approaches in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality user interfaces that transform uneducated rural women into a self-reliant, employable workforce in rural communities.

The compassion driven approach at Amrita breaks the barriers of geographical limitations to make sure that vocational education is accessible to one and all by initiative such as:

Mobile Vocational Education (MoVE) Using ICT

Skills training is the least accessible to those who stand to benefit the most from it. Making vocational education mobile may be one solution to this. In an effort to bring quality vocational education to the otherwise inaccessible regions of the diverse geography that India is, Amrita researchers conceptualised, designed, and built a mobile vocational training center. The project employs two models: the first brings training to the villages and the second model aims to carry innovation to the villages.

Our chancellor has always placed significant importance on providing skill development to the economically backward section of the society. As a part of the vocational educational initiative, the following project was undertaken.

Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)

Amrita-PMKVY will enable socially marginalized and economically disadvantaged youth to access skill development free of cost. The methodology that we adopt in providing skill development not only improves accessibility but also raises the standard and quality of vocational education. After completing the course, our trainees gain the technical skills required for employment and receive life skills that transform them into more socially responsible citizens.