Through community service projects that address local issues such as the environment, food for the homeless, volunteering at hospitals or reading to the blind, students find opportunities to help others and become more aware of their needs.

For the ICSE classes, service projects are structured under the 'Socially Useful Productive Work'. The CAS (Creativity, Action and Service) programme, which is part of the IB Diploma Programme, serves as a key opportunity for our students to engage extensively with a variety of social causes and is carried out in a very structured and committed format. Our students work with a number of NGOs – CCDT, Advitya, Akanksha, Muktangan and Pratham.

Indo-French Schools, an exchange service project between our school and L'Ermitage School, Paris and The Franco-Indian school of Bombay, organize an Eye-Camp, for over 1500 children, from BMC schools. The students visit areas in Malad, Navi Mumbai where all-day camps are setup, with the examination of eyes and finding remedial solutions for poor eyesight.

In 2006, in support of Pratham, our children conceived and produced a music video ‘Ek Jharokha’, exemplifying their contribution to the crusade to abolish child labor. This commendable work of our children was widely appreciated and was telecast nationally on some of the TV channels.

Through the 'Across the Road' neighbourhood service initiative our students reach out to the local community adjacent to the School with education programmes and health initiatives like the "DAI Sight" eye-care project.

Student-led service initiatives are strongly encouraged at our School. A group of students have decided to start a project called the EVE (Empowering Villages Everywhere) where they visit villages where electricity is scarce and provide the villagers with solar lamps to help them in their education, daily chores and employment. Our students have supplied solar lamps to each household in the Hassachipatti village.

Every year the school organizes the ‘DAIS Fete’, a fun-filled event of games and cultural shows, with the objective of raising funds for the NGOs our children work with. In 2007, the fete formed part of the school’s annual day - 'The Great Indian Mela'. It was a musical event to celebrate India's 60 years of Independence, as well as a fete to raise funds for the NGOs. Through this event a significant amount was collected and donated to the NGOs, in addition to the sales these NGOs made at the event by selling their products. The DAIS Fete ‘United for Mumbai’ organized in 2009 also elicited wholehearted participation of every constituent of the school community.

The 2010 DAIS Fete on the theme ‘Aashayein’ and the 2010 DAIS Fete on the theme ‘Christmas Carnival’, helped our students raise substantial funds for the DAIS CAS initiative ‘Empowering Rural India’ and to support other NGOs our students work with.

Development work at Hassachipatti Village

Our students have taken up the development of Hassachipatti, a village located on the slopes of Matheran. They have piloted this project with focus on education, infrastructure and empowerment. On the education front, all the school-going children have been provided with educational kits comprising textbooks, notebooks, stationery, school bags and uniforms; the college-going youths have been provided with vocational counseling and fees to meet their education needs; the children have been given classes in English, Mathematics and Computers by DAIS students at the DAIS Study Centre at Matheran. These educational efforts have benefitted over 100 children. On the infrastructure front, our students have helped to paint and waterproof the primary school building and have provided employment opportunity to locals for making the school furniture; a computer lab is being built by DAIS students in the Hassachipatti village to provide computer training to the children there. Our students are developing a rain water harvesting pond of 70,000 liters to take care of the water shortage in the village and have also helped in the building of a pathway through the inhospitable terrains leading to Hassachipatti. On the empowerment front, our students facilitated 5 girls from Hassachipatti acquire tailoring skills and provided them with sewing machines and kits. These girls have since stitched school uniforms for all the village children and the process is on to find them more work.

The school recognizes the need for an awareness of the environment and a group called “The Environment Group” has been set up, as a CAS initiative. This group works towards building an awareness of waste management, recycling and conservation of environment through activities like collection of paper, pooling the waste paper for recycling, composting the wet waste, etc. They work with NGOs which work towards building a cleaner and greener environment.

This year as a combined celebration of the Earth Day and Kurt Hahn’s birthday, a 40-day long activity was planned at DAIS. The objective was to build awareness about paper usage, wastage and applying the 3 Rs (Recycle, Reuse, Reduce) to make the best use of the waste paper. Paper is a necessity in all schools at all levels but it does result in a substantial amount of paper wastage. The school initiated a 3R paper project. A poster campaign was developed by students to build awareness of the environmental impact of paper wastage. Children painted recycled cartons and placed them in each classroom, labs, printer points. Paper was sorted into ‘usable’ to make stationery items etc. and ‘non usable’. This activity is now an on-going process in the school. Several groups are in the process of undertaking the recycling of the waste by making handmade paper and scribble pads for teachers.

DAIS Akanksha Centre

The spirit of caring, which is visible through various student-led service initiatives, is resonated in the school's institutional efforts to facilitate the education of children in slum areas through the "Dhirubhai Ambani International School Akanksha Centre". The school premises are used to teach these children from Mondays to Fridays between 3.00 pm and 5.30 pm. Apart from Akanskha's volunteer teachers, our IBDP students teach these children. They also spend quality time with them, involving them in Art & Craft, playing Chess, doing experiments in the science laboratory, etc.