As part of the World Water Day activities on March 22nd, 2019, the Mata Amritanandamayi Math in association with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham organized a major project in creating ‘water-wise’ communities across Kerala. This endeavor came as part of a larger enterprise called Jivamritam, a community-based purified drinking water program, which is one of the largest water initiatives in the country. Project Jivamritam was conceived to develop community-based business models, to address the challenges experienced by the world on water sustainability, to build water-wise communities through community engagement, to promote conscious water usage, to impart education and awareness on water quality, sustainability, and water conservation techniques. Presently, more than 240 Jivamritam systems are active along the length and breadth of Kerala.
During the state-wide activities held in 20 villages across 7 districts, the students, researchers, and faculty from the Master of Social Work program, AmritaWNA (Center for Wireless Networks and Application), and Amrita Center for International Programs have performed detailed community engagement programs to build ‘water-wise’ communities. The program sought to achieve social change from the grass-root level and ambassadors were selected at the event to build water-wise communities with sustainable social change. More than 2,000 beneficiaries have attended the programs to learn about water sustainability, water recycling, prevention of water contamination, and water-borne diseases.
