Abhudaya

What is Abhyudaya?

“Abhyudaya” is a Sanskrit word that means 'welfare and development for all'.

It is a transformative experiential learning course, where students of our PGDM (2-year full time) programme mentor school children from underprivileged backgrounds for a year. We call the children 'Sitara', which means star. Each PGDM student is mapped to one Sitara, and mentors that Sitara for a full year.

Based on this first hand understanding of poverty, our PGDM participants design sustainable business projects to solve social issues; which are evaluated by an industry panel. Thus, they develop their mentoring skills, and work towards becoming socially sensitive business leaders.

Through the non-profit arm of Abhyudaya, we have engaged deeply with the Sitara community for the past 14 years, providing education to 500+ schoolchildren. During the current Covid pandemic, we have intensified our efforts, providing financial assistance, food, health and safety programs, laptops for ongoing education, and a digital literacy program for our Sitaras.

Abhyudaya is a major differentiator among other business schools and in the industry.

It helps our students evolve into empathetic managers who want to make a difference to the world.

Course Objectives

Through the Abhyudaya programme, our management students can

Become socially aware, empathetic future managers
Learn mentoring and leadership skills
Understand the role of business in sustainability

Through the Abhyudaya programme, Sitaras can:

Realize their full potential, both in their work as well as personal life
Become financially self-reliant
Develop sensitivity to cultural diversity, harmonious community living, and gender equality

Abhyudaya Reach and recognition

Growing Together

The mentoring interaction between the MBA student and the Sitara provides rich opportunities for learning and growth. Some feedback from our participants:

“Often I had some learnings to impart to my mentee. At the end of our meetings, I realised that some these things if I employed myself would help me immensely!”

“When my mentee started sharing her personal life problems with me, I had to understand and advise her on the things I had never gone through myself. It gave me a different perspective about life.”

“Most of my visits to my Sitara's house included playing carrom together. And I was really bad at it. She would teach me tricks and tactics and she used to feel so proud. During those moments, it felt like we shared the bond of siblings and not that of mentor-mentee.”

"My mentee has faith in me. Whenever we meet she tells me about her achievements. She is very frank. It is a pleasure seeing her manage with limited resources and still come out with flying colours.”

“My Sitara Samreen is now the captain of her basketball team, does 'kushti', and participates in plays, all the while being great at studies. This also made me realise how I had left things I loved doing and that I should pick them up as well."

Reach and recognition

The Abhyudaya course and the associated non-profit arm have been running successfully since 2008. We provide financial grants to Sitaras and conduct a year-round on-going development programme to help them develop their skills. Today, Abhyudaya partners with around 70 local schools in Mumbai’s K-West Ward. It supports over 500 Sitaras in school and college, of which more than 50% are girls.

The innovativeness of Abhyudaya lies in its ability to beautifully blend the business aspects, the personal aspects, and the community development aspects. Management students understand the concepts of business sustainability and evolve into empathetic leaders. The Sitaras are able to fulfil their potential through holistic education. The Sitara parents and the larger community of school teachers are able to upskill themselves. We have received national and global recognition for our efforts:

2012: "Big Idea to Solve Big Problem" Award from GMAC
2013: Jury award at the World Education Summit (Innovation by Management Institute)
2015: Gold award at the Indian Management Conclave (teaching methodology)
2016: Recognized by the UNPRME; SPJIMR included as PRME Champions
2018: Innovative Practices Award by UN Global Compact Network India, for contribution to the SDGs.
2019: Excellence in Institutional Social Responsibility from FICCI
2021: SPJIMR recognized as a “pioneering school” with the highest “Level 5” rating by PIR (Positive Impact Rating)

Abhyudaya Reach and recognition 1

Giving to Abhyudaya

Thank you for considering a donation to Abhyudaya. Your gift will support and help grow the Abhyudaya network and enable us reach out to more students from economically disadvantaged sections.

Donations are to be made to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, specifying that the funds are intended for the Abhyudaya project. Donations in India are fully tax exempt under section 80G(2)(iiif) of the Income Tax Act. Donations from overseas are also accepted since we have FCRA registration.

For donation queries, please write to Prof. Deepa Krishnan (Head – Abhyudaya) at deepa.krishnan@spjimr.org