SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

5Working with NGOs and business

UPES students, researchers and staff work with NGOs and companies on volunteering, research and learning resources for the SDGs.

Student volunteering

• Srijan Social Internship. Since June 2021, every first-year student spends six to eight weeks full-time with a social organisation. It has three parts: a 10-hour pre-internship course on social issues such as health, education and poverty, the internship itself, and a post-internship phase in which students share what they learned with peers, seniors, faculty and staff. Partners have included Goonj, CRY, Teach for India, Sewa International, WWF, Greenpeace, Salaam Baalak Trust and NIIT Foundation. Students have served meals with Divya Prem Seva Mission, distributed reusable sanitary products with Human For Humanity, taught digital skills with Optasia Foundation, installed water filters with Urvita, restored wells and ponds under the Jal Jeevan Mission with Bhawana Sewa Sansthan, and planted trees with Green Birds Foundation. In 2025 Srijan 5.0 interns worked with Rise Foundation on afforestation and waste projects.
• GS3. Students from the first Srijan cohort founded the Global Society of Social Soldiers. Its Project Naraini ran five river clean-ups in Dehradun, Project Sakhi gave 1,200 sanitary pads and menstrual-health sessions to more than 1,000 girls in 10 government schools, and Project Ayushman taught hygiene and resource conservation to about 1,000 students in eight schools.
• Legal awareness in village schools. Under Srijan, the School of Law's Legal Aid Clinic and the UPES CSR team ran "Good Touch and Bad Touch" sessions for government-school students in Kharakhet, Misrapatti, Kandoli and Harriawala.
• DaanUtsav with Goonj. Since 2022, students and staff have collected clothes and essentials for an old age home and a slum community in Dehradun.

Research with NGOs and business

• SDC Foundation. Joint authorship of the UDAAI Monsoon Report 2025 on Uttarakhand's disasters.
• HESCO. UPES and HESCO jointly set up HILL, which works on landslide early warning, Bhanjira as a livelihood crop, eco-tourism, women's empowerment and a zero-waste model for the Himalaya.
• Aspire Impact. The RISE Centre partnership covers SDG mapping, Uttarakhand's Gross Environment Product and the university's own impact and emissions assessment.
• Heartfulness. In March 2024 the School of Health Sciences and Technology and Heartfulness trainers ran a three-day meditation workshop for about 150 faculty, students and staff, in line with UGC guidance on mental health, and collected pulse, oxygen-saturation and blood-pressure data before and after sessions.
• HCLTech. An MoU on sustainability and low-carbon solutions for the oil and gas industry, with internships.

Learning resources

• Project Ekalavya. With the Ladli Foundation and Byju's, GS3 students mentored about 1,000 children, including children of campus security staff and nearby villagers, who received digital learning subscriptions.
• Young problem solvers. On 11 August 2026 Runway Incubator and the Department of Social Outreach ran "Become a Community Problem Solver" for 155 students at Government Inter College, Paundha, who designed solutions to local problems from waste and road safety to water and farm markets.
• Made for NGOs. Srijan interns have created videos and presentations used by Parivartan Social Foundation to help rural students prepare for board exams, and environmental-studies lesson plans for primary teachers with Roopayan.
• ESG education. The Impact Specialist Programme, built with Aspire Impact and Mahindra University, offers 20 sessions and more than 50 caselets on net zero, circularity and impact.