The funding provides free education at India’s top private university and the fifth best in the country

April 18, 2022 - New Delhi

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has announced a new scholarship program to support 350 students from Africa to travel to India for higher education. Envisioning a common bond between Africa and India to further sustainable development, the announcement was made at the Amrita-Africa Summit in New Delhi on Monday. The event was attended by ambassadors and high commissioners from across Africa and hosted by dignitaries from the university.

Food rescue is still a relatively new concept in the environmental movement. It is the practice of collecting extra food from places like grocery stores and restaurants and distributing it to local emergency food programs to reach people in need. The food is edible but has passed its sell-by date, as is the case with day-old bread, or is imperfect in some small way, such as a bruised apple.

Volunteers with Amma Canada in Toronto began their food rescue project in 2017. Interestingly in this case, it started with a local food bank in a suburb where they volunteered twice a month to serve lunch. The Georgetown Bread Basket cares for low-income families and had to throw away food with expired best-before dates.

by Sreepriya Rohit - Budomierz, Poland

Sreepriya Rohit is a graduate of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering. She and her husband, Rohit Kartha, currently live in Munich, Germany. Both of them took time off work to volunteer with Embracing the World's station for refugees at the Budomierz border crossing between Poland and Ukraine.

It is for the first time in my life that I got a chance to experience war at such a close distance. It was indeed some of the harsh realities of life that I wish never existed. On 4th March, Rohit and I started our journey to the Polish border.

Vienna is just a five-and-a-half hour drive to Tiszabecs, a village on the eastern edge of Hungary next to the Ukrainian border. After hearing that hundreds of refugees were arriving there, six volunteers with Embracing the World in Austria decided to set up camp to provide hot drinks, food, and counsel on next steps. The stall opened on March 12th.

Since the war started between Russia and Ukraine, Embracing the World volunteers in Poland are at the borders to assist hundreds of Indian students and other refugees reach safety. Bearing harsh winter weather, they stay put to care for people who arrive after travelling long distances to escape the fighting.

The teams aid refugees of all nationalities by providing clothing, shoes, food, blankets, and other basic needs, and they find accommodation for those who do not have shelter. About 20,000 Indians were studying at universities in Ukraine at the beginning of the war.

In a study by doctors from Amrita Hospital, Kochi and scientists from the School of Biotechnology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, a novel intervention for COVID-19 has been explored with the well-known gas Nitric Oxide (NO).

It is colorless, can be produced naturally by the human body, and is important for many aspects of health. Its most vital function is vasodilation, meaning it relaxes the inner muscles of the blood vessels, causing them to widen and increase circulation. This allows blood, nutrients and oxygen to travel to every part of the body effectively and efficiently.

Dr Jeffrey Sachs is a prominent voice in the dialogue on climate change and a pioneer in sustainable development. Sri Kailash Satyarthi is a Nobel Peace Laureate who has led a tireless campaign for more than 40 years to end child slavery and exploitation. Both of them now hold Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s first honorary doctorates.

Amma, the university's Chancellor, bestowed the degrees during a virtual ceremony. The event included the presence of Sri Ashwini Kumar Choubey, India’s Minister of State for Consumer Affairs; Food and Public Distribution; and Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

In Singapore, migrant workers from India were prevented from travelling home for nearly two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers with the Amriteswari Society, Singapore decided to support them during such a trying time.

As a result of their efforts, they were able to provide 300 migrant workers from Tamil Nadu with supplies for basic needs. The workers are staying at the Avery Lodge Dormitory, as low-wage workers are usually housed in custom-built dormitories.

AmritaSREE (Self-Reliance Education & Empowerment) includes 15,000 self-help groups in 21 states across India and has more than 250,000 members. Most of the SHG women are from villages and other isolated rural areas in India.

This year, its 16th anniversary, Amma began a second installment of a COVID-19 aid package for AmritaSREE members. The project is a contribution worth ₹350 million ($4.6 million US) and consists of financial assistance, grocery kits and clothes. Aid is also going to people affected by recent floods in Kerala.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is running 40 projects in 13 villages across India to achieve rural electrification via smart grids. The university’s Center for Wireless Networks and Applications (WNA), along with the Department of Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, initiated the work to improve the lives of people in isolated areas.

WNA also has a three-year project called ‘Stabiliz-E’ with Indo-European collaboration. It intends to provide a cost-effective infrastructure and functional solution to combine local renewable energy sources with a high level of energy availability and sufficient quality of service for everyday use.