G-20 C20 Logo
Embracing the World
  • About us
    • Who we are
    • About Amma
    • ETW The Movie
    • Our eBook
    • In the Media
  • How you can help
    • About our Volunteers
    • AYUDH Youth Volunteers
    • Get Involved
  • Real life stories
  • English
    • Danish
    • French
    • German
    • Italian
    • Spanish
    • Swedish
  • Basic Needs
    • Food
    • Shelter
    • Healthcare
    • Education
    • Livelihood
  • Emergencies
  • Environment
  • Research
  • News

Amrita awarded second UNESCO Chair

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Amrita) has been awarded a UNESCO Chair for Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation & Development. The Chair supports the university’s mandate to strengthen sustainable development in villages across India, and Amrita will develop a comprehensive framework for academic engagement in order to do so.

The Chair will be held by Amrita for the next four years under the leadership of Dr Maneesha Sudheer, the Dean of the University’s International Programs and Director of its Center for Wireless Networks & Applications. As a UNESCO Chair, Amrita becomes part of more than 700 institutions that share knowledge and expertise to improve their educational and research capacities.

“This is the second UNESCO Chair awarded to Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in the past four years after it received India's first-ever UNESCO Chair on Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment,” says Dr Sudheer. “It is a great privilege for us to have achieved this recognition once again.”

The curriculum is based upon experiential learning where students spend time in villages and work in partnership with villagers to learn about the life challenges faced. Together, the students and local people seek solutions that will best suit the villagers’ needs on a long-term basis. This enables the academic community to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to help other vulnerable communities in the future.

“Our much-acclaimed experiential learning program, Live-in-Labs, was conceptualized by our Chancellor, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, whose vision for Amrita has always included compassion-driven research and sustainable development,” continues Dr Sudheer.

“Over the years, Live-in-Labs has contributed towards sustainable development of rural communities across 21 states. This work led to us being allotted this prestigious UNESCO Chair. We will now be able to take our experiential learning concept to the entire world in collaboration with other UNESCO Chairs and universities across the globe.”

The activities will feature post-graduate programs, including the options of Joint PhD, Double PhD and dual Masters programs. It will also hold short-term certificate courses, research, conferences, scholarships, and installation of model labs. The goal of the labs is to check the practicality of solutions for sustainable development before they are implemented in communities.

As an extension of Live-in-Labs, Amrita established a PhD in Sustainable Development in September 2019. Named E4LIFE, it is a fully-funded International PhD fellowship whose aim is to accelerate the empowerment of more than 100 villages that the university has adopted across India. Amrita will fund a total of 100 international and Indian students and is all set to receive the first group of 60 soon, out of which 45 are international candidates.

“This Chair and the work we will do under it are important because challenges to modern development are rising due to lack of access to basic resources like energy, water and other infrastructure, education, climate change, and lack of resilience when struck by disasters,” explains Dr Sudheer.

“Despite the advancements made in science and technology, simple and basic necessities are not being met for a majority of the population across the world. It is about time to think how the contributions of high-end research work translate to those belonging to the vulnerable sections of society.”

Amrita started Live-in-Labs in 2013 so students could experience first-hand the difficulties faced by India’s rural communities. The idea is if students are taken to live in such communities for a period of time, they will be inspired to better understand the villagers’ problems and collaborate with them to innovate sustainable solutions.

Live-in-Labs works with 101 villages throughout India. In these, it has implemented over 150 projects, supporting more than 200,000 people. About 400 international students from 40 international partner universities have participated in the program so far.

Posted on: September 9, 2020
  • second-column:
    A girl in Dunda, Uttarakhand starts her daily chore of collecting tree branches from the local forest.
    Villagers and students hold a meeting in Nani Borvai, Gujarat to get to know each other before starting discussions on the challenges the village faces.
    Elders in Dunda, Uttarakhand.
    Three social work students from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada help women in Hadiabad, Bihar with rice crops.
    Damara is a nursing student from Ryerson University who travelled to Ratanpur, Bihar to work with the Musahar people, one of India's most impoverished scheduled caste communities.
Top


Embracing the World is a global network of
charitable projects conceived by the Mata Amritanandamayi Math
(an NGO with Special Consultative Status to the United Nations)

Social Media
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
Related Sites
  • Amma.org
  • Amrita University
  • Live-in-Labs
  • Amrita Hospitals
  • Amrita Self-Reliant Villages
  • Amrita SREE SHGs
  • GreenFriends
  • AYUDH India
  • AYUDH Europe
  • AYUDH Americas
Stay in Touch
  • Local ETW groups
  • International Directory (pdf)
  • ETW in the Media
Downloads
  • Humanitarian Initiatives of the MA Math (2022)
  • ETW Humanitarian Overview (2020)
  • ETW eBook (2019)
  • Amma: Bio (2020)
  • Amma: Factsheet (2019)
  • Pray & Serve: Amma and the Tsunami (2007)
  • 40 Years of Amrita Yoga (2022)
  • AYUDH: Generation of Peace (2019)

Humanitarian Projects

Food
  • 10 Million Meals Every Year, India
  • Nairobi, Kenya
  • San Jose, Costa Rica
  • Cancun, Mexico
  • North America
  • Kenya
  • Sydney and Melbourne, Australia
  • Southern France
  • Granollers, Spain
Shelter
  • 100,000 Homes for the Homeless, India
  • Orphanage for 500 Children, India
  • Relocating Slumdwellers, India
  • Amrita Watoto Boma Children's Home
Healthcare
  • Amrita Hospital
  • Medical Camps
  • Satellite Hospitals
  • HIV/AIDS Health Clinic
  • Public Health
  • Telemedicine
  • Cataract Surgeries in Kenya
Education
  • 100,000 Scholarships for Children
  • Award-winning Adult Education
  • After School programs
  • School for Hearing Impaired
  • School for Differently-Abled
  • Amrita University
Livelihood
  • Empowering Women
  • Lifetime Financial Aid
  • Traditional Arts School
  • Industrial Training Center
  • Vocational Training Center
Environment
  • Planting Trees
  • Home and Community Gardens
  • Reducing, Reusing, Recycling
  • Clean India Campaign
  • Environmental Education
  • Sustainable Communities
Emergencies
  • COVID-19, 2020
  • Floods in Kerala, 2018
  • Cylcone in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, 2017
  • Earthquake in Nepal, 2015
  • Floods in Tamil Nadu, 2015
  • Floods in Jammu & Kashmir, 2014
  • Landslides in North and South India, 2013
  • Typhoon in The Philippines, 2013
  • Fire Disasters in South India, 2012
  • Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, 2011
  • Haiti Earthquake, 2010
  • Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh Floods, 2009
  • Cyclone Aila, 2009
  • Bihar Floods, 2008
  • Hurricane Katrina, 2005
  • Mumbai Floods, 2005
  • Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004
  • Gujarat Earthquake, 2001
Research
  • Wireless Technology for Landslide Detection
  • Groundbreaking Nanotechnology
  • Human-Computer Interaction for Everyone
  • Fighting an Epidemic with Biotechnology
  • Virtual Laboratories
  • Wearable Technology for Health and Safety
  • Tablet-based Learning for Rural Children
  • Open and Distance Learning
Made with love by volunteers in canada, france, germany, india and the united states.

Embracing the World © 2023 Embracing the World / Terms of Use / Privacy Policy