As a 19-year-old medical student, Ramaswami Balasubramaniam founded the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM). Nearly three decades later, SVYM is India's leading nonprofit development organization, and Cornell students have played a "life changing" role in its health, education and community development work.

"Sometimes when I get students from another university, it's a challenge to keep my team motivated to work with them ... but Cornell is different," said Balasubramaniam during his first visit to campus as a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor Sept. 27. He described the work of Cornell students at the program as "life changing."

Balasubramaniam encouraged students to participate in the ILR School's India SVYM Global Service Learning (GSL) Program, which partners with SVYM to bring ILR students and global health minors to India to gain useful experience while contributing to a worthy cause.

"Many of you may not even know what you're capable of, and at [age] 18, 19, the world is very different from what you imagine it to be," said Balasubramaniam. "When one is shown different perspectives and challenged by culture, by emotions, by food, it changes the way one thinks about oneself, about the world one lives in, and what we can all do together," he said.

Balasubramaniam and students who participated in the program this summer discussed the effects of the program on their personal, academic and professional lives, and encouraged students to take advantage of the opportunity. "The future of the world … lies in the hands of its people," he said and called upon those "who have the ability to dream, the courage to believe in their own convictions, and to see beyond boundaries and color" to join in service work because "what the world needs today is those kind of people."

Students who were past participants agreed on the "immense" personal, intellectual and professional gains from the program. One ILR student called it the "most rewarding experience" of her life and urged others to explore a foreign language, culture and society to broaden their perspectives.

"To me it's more than a service learning program. It's a program of leadership in global citizenry," said Balasubramaniam. "Opportunities like these create global citizens in each one of you."

SVYM works to improve civil society in India through grassroots-to-policy level action in health, education and community development. It delivers community-based services to poor and marginalized people in such fields as health care, education, microfinance and farming.

Cornell students have worked on such projects as developing standard operating procedures to treat nutrition-related diseases, and producing volunteer training manuals for health care professionals and diversity workshops for public and private sector organizations.

Donna Ramil, ILR associate director of international programs and student services, said there has been an "incredible impact on students through their engagement with SVYM."

Applications for the program are due Oct. 31.

While on campus, Balasubramaniam also lectured on global comparative disability policy, global health, and nonprofit finance and management; visited with students at Alice Cook House; and discussed topics ranging from law to economics and service learning with administrators and faculty.

Umang Prabhakar '13 is an intern writer for the Cornell Chronicle.