Community Service

Each year, students and teachers of the University work with local communities around the campuses throughout the year. Many of these service activities are initiatives by students themselves. Inspired by the example and precepts of our Revered Founder Chancellor, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, they reflect the impact of the unique blend of secular and spiritual education they receive here.

These are recorded in the News & Event section. Given below are the latest Community service activities undertaken by students of various SSSIHL campuses. Kindly click on the links to see the full reports and photos.

Narayana Seva
Anantapur Campus, every month
Each month, food packets are distributed to the needy poor in the slums around Anantapur town. The monthly Narayana Seva activity sees a team of cooks, campus workers, rickshaw drivers and students come together to deliver 25 kg of Pulihora (approximately 270-300 packets) to these marginalized citizens of society. The impact of this programme goes a long way in the lives of students. As alumni, they continue this activity, both at a large and small scale.

Love Stream – Adoption of Leper Colony
Anantapur Campus, 1986 to date
The students and staff of the Anantapur Campus hostel have adopted a leper colony situated in the outskirts of the town of Anantapur since 1986, with the objective of making the inmates of the colony as self-sufficient as possible. The grand old project, Project Love Stream, is etched in the memory of many a student as an example of service in action and how a little love and care has the power to create long lasting benefits to generations of families.

As part of the project, each year, the students of the Campus make a variety of handicrafts like cards, bookmarks, rakhis and friendship bands. These are then sold to the inmates of the hostel and the amount thus raised is utilized to buy provisions for the residents of the leper colony on a monthly basis. In 2019/20, monthly provisions were regularly distributed to the inmates.

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Celebrating Christmas with village children
Muddenahalli Campus, Christmas 2019
For some years now, on the morning of 25 December, the students of the Campus visit Muddenahalli village for Christmas celebrations. They begin with nagar sankeertan from the hostel, and make their way to the village. They then offer lighted candles to the children who participate in the bhajan session held at the local Hanuman temple. After the prayers, all the village children are offered chocolates as Christmas gifts, giving a lot of joy and pleasure to both the village kids as well as the students themselves.

Old Age Home Visit
Muddenahalli Campus, Jul and Nov 2019
Another staple yearly service is the scheduled visit to Sai Dwarakamayee Vriddhashrama, an old age home at Sultanpet, Nandi village, about four kilometres from Muddenahalli. The resident population has now swelled to about fifty residents.

After a half hour bhajan session, the students spent about an hour interacting with the aged elders, during which they sang songs and listened to the experiences of the residents. The elders too enthusiastically sang and talked to the young students. For those residents who could not come to the prayer hall, the students visited them in their living rooms. The visit taught students, especially freshers, the value of empathy and respect for elders. They were emotionally touched after listening to the stories of the elders.

Aradhana Day Seva
Brindavan Campus, 24 Apr 2020
Amidst the COVID-19 lockdown, students of the campus with the help of alumni served prasadam (in the form of food packets) to 900 people in Kadugodi village. Cooking commenced at 3 a.m. followed by packing, transportation and organized distribution. In addition to this, ashram workers and their families were given new clothes.

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The ‘Bring Back Chitravati to its Glory’ campaign
Prasanthi Nilayam Campus, 15 Nov 2019
As part of an ongoing organised effort between the University and local authorities to bring back the sacred River Chitravati to its glory, postgraduate students of the campus cleaned parts of the ghat and planted scores of trees along the Chitravati River. The local community also got involved, including the Commissioner himself.

“This has helped me relate firsthand to the needs of the community. We experienced the theoretical aspects of our Rural Management course today,” said a student.

Grama Seva
Prasanthi Nilayam Campus, December 2019
Prasanthi Nilayam Campus, July 2019
Prasanthi Nilayam Campus, Academic Year 2018/19

#GramaSeva
Initiate. Serve. Love. Repeat.

Teams of students, doctoral research scholars and teachers visited all the three villages again to continue their work from the previous academic year.

At the village of Narsimpalli, students and teachers responded to the requests of village folk in providing upgradations to the existing dilapidated government school. They began with essential plumbing work (taps, pipelines, etc.) and worked with the village mason and others to facilitate further work. Later on, in December 2019, students mapped and geotagged major areas of the village (for cartographic reasons and identification of issues). In addition, they undertook the restoration of the Anganwadi (rural child care centre): A complete paint job, installation of new toilets, cleaning the septic tank, installation of an overhead water tank (1000 liters) and new electrical wiring for all the rooms (with energy-conserving LED light fittings).

At Bonthalapalli, students took on the challenge of reducing unemployment of the village youth. They highlighted the need for better skills to get actively employed. After conducting thorough interviews of the twenty unemployed youth of the village and assessing their current educational qualifications, skill sets, etc., they then went back with consolidated data and actively worked with them to teach the required set of soft skills, thus enhancing their employability.

At Marlapalli, under the Education module, students of Std. IV-VI were trained in basic reading skills. Students of Std. VII were involved in a host of Mathematical activities. Other activities include making of Bank books, learning basic music skills and Yoga asanas. Separately, medical data of 78 village elders was collected and students of the M.Tech. in Computer Science programme employed their data mining skills and came up with a follow-up plan (including predictive measures) for the next action steps.

Love All, Serve All, as our Revered Founder Chancellor always taught us.