Understanding India.
Building global citizens.
VIIS creates immersive opportunities for students, professionals and volunteers from around the world to understand India through its people, culture, knowledge systems and development realities.
Objective
To position VIIS as a global platform for understanding India by fostering cross-cultural learning, global citizenship and meaningful international engagement through immersive academic, cultural and field-based experiences.
India becomes the classroom
Established in 2008, VIIS was created to deepen understanding of India by bringing academic learning into conversation with culture, communities and lived experience.
Its programmes bring international learners into direct engagement with India's health systems, social-development landscape, arts, language, literature, spirituality, traditions and everyday life.
By combining classroom sessions with field visits, community interaction, cultural immersion and reflection, VIIS helps participants move beyond observing India towards understanding its complexity and diversity.
Read more about VIIS's evolution
VIIS began with the vision of introducing India and its many dimensions to learners from around the world. Over time, university partnerships grew into sustained programmes in service learning, health, culture, music, yoga, internships and academic exchange.
VIIS established in Mysuru as SVYM's platform for Indian studies and global engagement.
Long-term collaborations with international universities expanded programmes in Global Health, service learning, music, dance, yoga and community immersion.
VIIS moved international internships and academic engagement online during the pandemic, sustaining learning partnerships across borders.
The Understanding India course developed as a structured exploration of heritage, cultural markers, spirituality and contemporary India.
Global Health, Cornell Global Service Learning, University of Michigan cultural programmes and international internships continued to deepen experiential learning.
VIIS strengthened established university partnerships, added new academic collaborations and expanded Understanding India, cultural events, electives, internships and volunteering.
Study. Experience. Reflect. Connect.
The learning journey is designed to move between academic understanding and lived experience.
Build context
Sessions on India, development, health, culture, history and knowledge traditions create a foundation for deeper engagement.
Enter the field
Community visits, institutional exposure and project work allow learners to encounter development realities directly.
Question assumptions
Dialogue and guided reflection help participants examine differences, similarities and their own ways of seeing the world.
Build global citizenship
Cross-cultural relationships turn learning into empathy, curiosity and a stronger sense of shared responsibility.
Global engagement through multiple forms of learning
Many ways to understand India
VIIS programmes are curated around the learner, institution and purpose of engagement rather than a single fixed format.
India in its many dimensions
The flagship programme introduces participants to India's heritage, society, governance, culture, spirituality, knowledge traditions and contemporary development questions through lectures, dialogue and experience.
Health in its social and cultural context
International health learners engage with healthcare delivery, public health, communities and the social determinants of health through academic sessions and field exposure across SVYM's health ecosystem.
Learning through contribution
University cohorts combine academic engagement with field-based projects, community interaction and service-learning assignments across areas such as Health, Education and community development.
Encounter India beyond the classroom
Music, dance, yoga, literature, storytelling, language, spirituality and Indian traditions create experiential pathways into the country's cultural and intellectual life.
Learn from development practice
International students and professionals can engage with SVYM institutions and programmes through curated internships and volunteer placements aligned to their interests and learning goals.
Build confidence across cultures
Collaborative workshops such as the VIIS–Cornell Debate and Argumentation programme bring young people together to practise communication, critical thinking and cross-cultural learning.
Relationships that grow across years and borders
VIIS has built sustained academic relationships with universities that return to India through recurring programmes, evolving formats and deeper institutional engagement.
Current partnerships highlighted in SVYM's FY 2025–26 reporting. Individual programmes and participating departments may vary by year.
Learning through people, places and practice
VIIS draws upon SVYM's wider institutional and community ecosystem so that learning about India is rooted in real contexts rather than abstraction alone.
Care & public health
Hospitals, outreach, palliative care and community health offer insight into access, systems and equity.
Learning & aspiration
Schools and education programmes create opportunities to understand rural, tribal and institutional education contexts.
Development in context
Field engagement allows learners to understand livelihoods, local institutions, participation and community knowledge.
Continuity & expression
Arts, traditions, language, literature and everyday cultural practice deepen the academic encounter with India.
What learners carry back with them
Across university programmes, internships and cultural immersion, participants often describe VIIS not simply as a course, but as an experience that changed how they understood India, development and themselves.
For me the greatest experience was connecting with people from other cultures, learning from them their customs, religion and philosophy, and being treated as family.
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Understanding another society can change how we understand our own
VIIS aims not merely to transfer information about India, but to create encounters that encourage curiosity, humility, empathy and reflection — qualities central to responsible global citizenship.
Long-running partnerships with institutions such as Cornell University, the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota demonstrate how repeated engagement can deepen relationships beyond a single visit or course.
Experience India through immersion and contribution
International students and professionals can engage through internships, volunteering, university programmes and customised academic experiences. Application pathways are maintained through SVYM's central engagement pages.
A global learning platform rooted in India
VIIS is based in Mysuru and draws on SVYM's institutions, programmes, communities and faculty to create contextual academic and cultural experiences.