EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
GiveGoa is a long-running and mandatory component of the MBA at Goa Institute of Management (GIM) that covers wide-ranging areas of social responsibility, from financial inclusion and education to agriculture and accessibility. Divya Singhal and Padhmanabhan Vijayaraghavan explain how the initiative’s service-learning approach develops students’ awareness and understanding of what being a responsible leader entails
W ith the aim of providing holistic and continuous learning beyond the classroom, GIM launched the GiveGoa initiative in 2011. The initiative encourages students to step out of their comfort zone and use their skills to impact local communities positively. It is designed to instil responsibility and compassion in our graduates, aligned with our institute’s vision of creating transformative leaders who are focused on responsible, ethical and sustainable business practices. Action learning in the community GiveGoa is a service-learning initiative; an approach that enables business school students to gain knowledge and apply their theoretical learning to projects in support of community wellbeing. It also o ers students a deeper understanding of real- world challenges and the realisation that, as future leaders, they have a responsibility to contribute to societal welfare. For example, to help alleviate the number of deaths caused by rabies in India – estimated by the World Health Organisation to be up to 20,000 each year – students in the initiative have collaborated with community organisations to launch campaigns across village communities in the western Indian state of Goa that focus on the prevention of dog bites, as well as associated treatment and vaccinations. Their work has included street plays designed to communicate the importance of these measures e ectively. For many students, such experiences play an important role in shaping their mindsets and life aspirations, providing them with purpose and direction beyond the mere pursuit of a livelihood.
The assumption behind GiveGoa is that students not only learn about the circumstances and challenges faced by di erent communities, but that they also appreciate the need to address these problems and help communities implement the changes required to have a positive impact on people’s lives. In this way, the initiative is designed to help students become more socially aware and inclined towards taking responsibility for community wellbeing. A core component of the MBA GiveGoa projects span numerous areas, including education, social welfare, agriculture and public health, but are united in their aim of improving the lives of local communities across the state of Goa. Each project runs for a full year, in which students are given time to visit the eld, interact with the intended bene ciaries and understand the context of their project before they start work. This approach ensures a focus on immersive learning. In the curriculum, participation in a GiveGoa project makes up three of the four credits in a course taken by all students in the rst year of the school’s post-graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM and the equivalent of an MBA in India). The fourth credit, meanwhile, reinforces knowledge of key topics and challenges that will arise during the experiential learning project, with classroom discussions centred around lms and articles on social responsibility. Projects are assigned to groups of six students, in conjunction with partners that include government departments, banks and NGOs. Students visit the eld each week and work with their partner organisation to conduct studies and undertake activities that best serve the intended bene ciaries. In a service- learning model, site visits play an extremely signi cant role. The approach encourages students to study
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Business Impact ISSUE 1 2024
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