Upon accepting her role as Chair of India’s C20 engagement group, Amma expressed she was grateful to the Indian Government for arranging such a high-level representation of the voices of the common people. In addition, members include Sri M, the Satsang Foundation as Participant; Sudha Murthy, Chair, Infosys Foundation as Participant; Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini as Secretariat; and the Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari as an Institutional Partner.
In the initial C20 online meeting, Amma said: "Hunger, conflict, extinction of species, and environmental destruction are the most important issues facing the world today. We should put in sincere effort to develop solutions. If scientists of all fields—computer science, mathematics, physics, engineers, etc—would all work together, then we would be able to create more innovative methods of predicting environmental catastrophes, and thereby we would be able to save so many lives. Often, we see a lack of multidisciplinary and integrated effort. This is the need of the hour."
The G20's members consist of 19 countries plus the European Union, and India has been a member since its inception in 1999. Overall, the G20 accounts for about 80% of gross world product (GWP), 59-77% of international trade, two-thirds of the world’s population, and roughly half of its land area.
Under the auspices of the G20, C20 engages more than 800 civil societies, representatives, and networks of various countries, including organisations from countries who are not G20 members, to ensure that people of all strata of society are heard at the G20 Leaders’ Summit. Representation of CSOs among G20 member nations began in 2010 and was launched as an official G20 engagement group in 2013.
Amma explained that poverty in rural areas is a key issue to address in terms of moving ahead as a society, especially since it is the people there who grow most of our food. Amma has been studying the lives of people in villages all over India and the world for more than 35 years. She has experienced that when we superficially look at villages from on high, we will not find holistic solutions. We need to go to the ground level and understand the issues from their point of view.
“One of the fundamental causes of conflict is hunger. The issue of hunger is very complex. When we go into impoverished villages, we see that often the addictions of men lead to poverty. This poverty in turn prevents women from getting proper nutrition during the vital stages of pregnancy,” said Amma.
"As a result of malnourishment or even of absorbing toxins from contaminated food, their children die at birth. People need to be made aware of the need for nourishing women, especially pregnant women.”
She also spoke about the need to educate villagers about adopting practices outside their traditional ways, as in this day and age many of them are no longer sustainable. Sometimes existing infrastructures even lead to high-risk illnesses. In 2013, Embracing the World (ETW) initiated Amrita SeRVe to help foster self-reliance in 108 impoverished villages throughout India.
“In the villages, we started a project called Jivamritam. Through this project, we provide clean drinking water and educate people on the importance of clean water. But there were people in some of the villages who blindly believed that they would only stay healthy by consuming the river water, which was polluted.
"They even believed that if they took the filtered water, they would develop kidney stones and bone diseases. So, in spite of being provided with clean, filtered water they continued to only drink the river water. As such, they continued to have various waterborne diseases,” said Amma.
"Everything needs balance. Just taking antidiabetic medications alone will not lower our blood sugar as long as we continue consuming sugar. So, we need to bring about awareness in the villages, but we also need to go into the villages ourselves and understand all the subtle and individual issues pertaining to each area."
Amma shared that one of ETW's projects has been to build toilets in the villages, alongside teaching villagers how to build their own. In one village when the team returned to check in on progress after a few months, the toilets were being used as prayer rooms.
"As far as these villagers were concerned, these newly built toilets were the nicest parts of their homes, and they believed that the nicest part of the home should always belong to God. This is yet another example illustrating how understanding the culture of each area is essential when trying to implement any kind of change," said Amma.
In 2013, Amma started a project at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham called Live-in-Labs, an experiential learning program where university students from multiple disciplines spend time in rural communities to research, develop, and deploy solutions for sustainable development. Participants from across India and around the world travel to the villages to take part.
The essential component is that the students work with the villagers to gain a better understanding of the challenges they face in their daily lives. In collaboration, Amrita's teams and the local people build realistic and lasting solutions that are in alignment with the practical needs of the community.
Amma explained: "The students are able to study and understand the ground-level issues faced by the impoverished people. This also helps compassion awaken within the students. Otherwise, students become very self-centred and unaware of those around them. By exposing these students to the suffering of the poor villagers, a sense of responsibility towards the villagers awakens within them."
Amma also addressed the issue of how depression and mental illness in India are growing with each generation. Though the country is based on the tradition of collective society, identities focused more on individual interests are developing and people are becoming isolated from each other. She said we need to fear the spread of mental illness even more than war and ensure proper counselling facilities for those with mental illness.
"In the olden days, though India had one of the largest populations, there were very few jails or hospitals for mental illness. The facilities in a single state were enough to serve the entire country. In just a short span of time, we have come to require more jails and mental health facilities than many other countries. Our culture has disintegrated into chaos and anarchy. If there are three groups of people, none of the three will communicate. They will not share with each other equally,” Amma said.
To restore a sense of communal ownership and responsibility in villages, ETW has installed drinking-water systems in schools and in some places, also trained women in maintaining them. In 1998, ETW also started giving money to women as part of a pension program called Amrita Nidhi. But the next step for community empowerment came with the launch of sponsoring self-help groups (SHGs) for women.
Amma said: "In 2005, we created the AmritaSREE program. Here, pooled money was given as grant funding. Through this, self-financing groups were created to aid in start-up businesses and vocational training. These groups were not only able to make themselves self-reliant, but even made their entire villages so." v
Today, AmritaSREE has helped seed 15,000 SHGs in 21 states across India and 250,000 women have found a means to earn a living, with most of them living in villages and other isolated rural areas. During the pandemic, ETW also distributed COVID-19 aid packages to AmritaSREE members that consisted of financial assistance, grocery kits, and clothes. The amount of aid provided was ₹850 million ($11 million).
In concluding her address to India's C20 team, Amma added: “All the issues raised here are vitally important. However, this should go beyond a mere physical meeting and become a true meeting—a meeting of hearts and minds. This is the only way to awaken ourselves and others.”
The Indian Government's G20 priorities include inclusive, equitable and sustainable growth; environmental sustainability; women’s empowerment; digital public infrastructure and tech-enabled development in areas ranging from health, agriculture and education to commerce, skill-mapping, culture and tourism; climate financing; circular economy; global food security; energy security; green hydrogen; disaster-risk reduction and resilience; developmental cooperation; fight against economic crime; and multilateral reforms.
This year’s G20 Leaders’ Summit is about to take place November 15-16 in Indonesia with the theme of "Recover Together Recover Strong." Understanding the challenges and the need for collective action in the aftermath of COVID-19, Indonesia will focus on three main pillars for its Presidency: Global Health Architecture, Sustainable Energy Transition, and Digital Transformation.
Photo 2: Women from a nearby village attend Amma’s 2006 program in Amdavad, Gujarat.
Photo 3: During the pandemic, ETW distributed COVID-19 aid packages to AmritaSREE self-help groups. The total amount of aid provided was ₹850 million ($11 million).
Photo 4: Amma with families in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu in January, 2005. The community suffered a tragic fire in a nursery school in July 2004 in which 94 children died.
Photo 5: A woman in Maira, Punjab gets her blood pressure taken in one of our regular health camps.
Photo 6: A farmer in Sadivayal, Tamil Nadu sows organic rice, a member of one of our first farmers’ collectives.
Photo 7: A student in Dewgain, Jharkhand. Village children regularly attend our after-school tuition classes to support their education.
Photo 8: Women in Nani Borvai, Gujarat collect safe drinking water at the Jivamritam filtering system in their village.
Photo 9: A collective of women in Harirampura, Rajasthan built toilets for their community to bring an end to open defecation, alongside learning a new set of skills to earn for their families.
Photo 10: Children in villages across 21 states attend our after-school tutoring sessions that use tablets to foster their interest in learning.
Photo 11:Students with Live-in-Labs travel to 22 different villages across India to interact with the community and find sustainable solutions for the issues they face.
