Hive on hold

“With a heavy heart, and after much deep reflection amongst our team, we have decided not to proceed with the Hive for this year 2018,” wrote YouthLink on April 10th in an email to Auroville’s Town Planning Department L’Avenir d’Auroville, to the Forest Group, the Working Committee, the 50th Anniversary Team, and to YouthLink’s mentors. All were taken by surprise: it was a decision nobody had expected.

YouthLink then explained the numerous reasons why it had taken this decision. What stood out was its wish to stand for integrity: YouthLink didn’t want to proceed without the agreement of all the groups. “This tension between groups is one of our biggest reasons for not wanting to move forward. We do not want to repeat old patterns of forced development in Auroville,” wrote YouthLink. “It is important for us to manifest it through a harmonious collective process ... we are not upset or pointing blame to any one individual or group.” The maturity and wisdom of its reflections did not go unnoticed. As one long-term Aurovilian commented, “It is an example for all of us.”

What happened?

The YouthLink Hive started off as a campus project, following the suggestion of the Chairman of the Auroville Foundation in 2015 that on the occasion of Auroville’s 50th anniversary a 100-bed Golden Jubilee Youth Hostel should manifest. This project was scuttled due to two factors: the expected funds never manifested, and there was fierce opposition by members of the neighbouring community to the site allocated by L’Avenir d’Auroville. These discussions took about two years.

By November 2017, a Rs 10 crore (approximately US $ 1.5 million) special grant from the Government of India for the occasion of Auroville’s 50th anniversary was received. YouthLink was allocated Rs 1.24 crore (approximately US $ 186,000) for the Hive. After evaluating three sites and with the approval; of YouthLink and the site stewards, L’Avenir d’Auroville then decided that a site in Bliss Forest, which was marked in the Master Plan as ‘Vocational Belt’, would be allocated to the project. In a buoyant mood, and in view of the upcoming meeting of the Governing Board, YouthLink invited the Chairman and the Board members, all Aurovilians and the public to attend the Bhoomi Puja on February 26th. [see AVToday # 344 March 2018].

However, at that time the feedback that L’Avenir had meanwhile received from members of the Forest Group had not yet been processed. The Forest Group had expressed concern about the presence of valuable trees and a water catchment area; they proposed an alternative site. In view of time constraints which made considering another site not feasible – the project would need to start by mid April 2018 in order to spend the majority of the funds by the deadline of September 2018 – and to respect their observations, on April 2nd L’Avenir d’Auroville gave a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for only a part of the initial plot with the intention to start work on finalizing the site development guidelines in consultation with the site steward. But the NOC was neither to the liking of the Forest Group, nor to the architects of the Hive, nor to YouthLink itself.

Evaluating the NOC

The Forest Group reiterated that their considerations had not been fully respected and that their alternate proposed site has not been considered. L’Avenir, a Forest Group member, was enforcing theoretical concepts and plans made decades ago that are disconnected from the reality of today.

Imago, the Hive’s architects, concurred with the views of the Forest Group. Moreover, it said that a project like the Hive could not be completed within the given time frame. As an aside it expressed the architect’s dilemma: architects only get paid when a project materialises. Imago had been working on the Hive for 3 years, and this project is now very much in the red.

YouthLink found that the allocated reduced area did not answer its needs. “YouthLink is a space for young adults who yearn for a transformation in their life. It is a platform for the collective manifestation of Auroville, led by the dreams and aspirations of young adults (18-40) to explore themselves and discover their role in a collective context. It is a space to support young adults in integrating into Auroville and kick-starting their lives as empowered individuals and teams. It is a space to disseminate wisdom from older generations to the younger generations. It is a space to cross-pollinate between young adults in Auroville, the bioregion and the world, to highlight Auroville ideals globally.”

In order to allow this vision to manifest, YouthLink needs a multi functional hall for education, an outdoor learning space, an outdoor hands-on workshop space, a co-working space for project start ups, a cafeteria, an accommodation for Auroville youth caretakers and some accommodation for visiting students. The allocated site, said YouthLink, will corner the youth and not allow them the possibility to thrive. The space would soon be outgrown.

Trust in the future

“We are grateful for the tremendous amount of thought and support that has gone into finding us a space in Auroville,” wrote YouthLink. “Although letting go of the 1.24 crore has been very difficult for us, we didn’t want money to be the leading force, the ‘sovereign lord’ , pushing us. We trust that our dream is valid and that we will find the support in the near future to build this space for Auroville. We do not know where we will receive future funds from (Government of India grant or other donors), it may even take us longer, but we trust that our vision is true and that the money will come. In other words, ‘good things take time’, and we want to do this properly in coherence with the Auroville ideals.”

YouthLink also expressed the hope that the case study of the Hive will help us learn as a community. “We have explored various plots for this project over the last 3 years, and still have a challenge locating a space adequate for this project. We hope that in the near future, when we propose to construct the Hive again, that we are not left to fend or fight for this project ourselves. We hope that we can nurture a deeper collaboration between Aurovilians and groups to find harmonious solutions that provide win-win for all,” wrote YouthLink.

This hope was not expressed in vain. At the initiative of one of the members of the Working Committee, a meeting of all stakeholders was called on April 23rd with the objective to extract lessons for improvement for the future. There was unanimous agreement that the Hive must manifest in future. A second agreement was that all stakeholders need to work together to evaluate projects. They need to sit at the table from the start and at all stages to come up with a decision together.

“We are not letting go of the Hive dream, but we want to start again, with a fresh process,” wrote YouthLink. “Like many of you have experienced, The Mother has often found ways to guide us, or slow us down, simply because we have something deeper still to learn. We feel that by taking more time we will be able to listen to this divine intention, and thus manifest something even more beautiful than any of us could initially imagine.”