The work of Savi

Savi - meaning ‘key’ in Tamil - is the official service in charge of organising and facilitating the interaction between volunteers and Auroville units. People who work a minimum of 2 months are considered Long Term Volunteers, and if they are foreigners and wish to stay for 6 months or more, they need a special letter issued by the Auroville Foundation that will provide them with an Entry Visa.

Volunteers must stay in an official Auroville accommodation, either homestays or guesthouses or in Auroville Housing, like youth projects or house sitting, and it is mandatory for them to register at the Town Hall and to receive an Aurocard in Financial Service, among other formalities. 

The Savi team currently consists of six people and is working hard, not only in managing  the increasing demand for volunteering opportunities, coordinating the necessary letters and documents, but also in being the intermediary with the units and keeping the website updated. It also guides volunteers in what sometimes can be an overwhelming experience, especially for people coming here for the very first time. 

Savi receives between 15-70 email requests per day from people who want to come and work in Auroville. Some of them are Indian nationals who want paid jobs, something Auroville does not provide for volunteers, so Savi has to explain this to them each time.  

Sara Sponza, the general coordinator of Savi, has been working there for six years. Among other tasks, she is in charge of problem solving and public relations, and she also organises the Volunteer Introduction Program (VIP). Here she answers some questions. 

Why was Savi established?

Savi was born 13 years ago as a need to give a framework to people that wish to contribute actively in Auroville, so they can be identified and Auroville can support them. Before Savi existed, people who wanted to volunteer would wander around, and Aurovilians in units sometimes didn’t have the attention or time to connect with them, so we became the bridge in between. People now have an easier access to information regarding Units/Services that are looking for help, and can approach them with more ease. Savi is like a window through which individuals from all over the world and India can have a first understanding of Auroville activities and the diversity they can find here.

Practically, in what ways do Auroville and the Auroville units 

support volunteers?

There is affordable accommodation for volunteers in Auroville. Some examples are Mitra hostel, La Maison de Jeunes and Celebration. As a volunteer you also receive a 20% refund of your Guest Contribution at Financial Service after 2 months of work. Some Guest Houses may also give an additional discount. 

There is also a general agreement that workshops, activities, therapies and treatments will provide 50% discounts for volunteers, and there are a few restaurants providing benefits as well, but it is up to each unit to decide this. 

We recommend to the unit holders to pay at least the volunteer contribution -which is Rs 900 - and the lunch scheme at Solar Kitchen or other places. If they can also support accommodation expenses that makes a great difference, as this is one of the main challenges for volunteers. In any case, when volunteers come here they have to agree to be self-sufficient and provide for themselves. 

Some volunteers feel that they are treated as “free workers”. 

We explain to the units that volunteering is not an opportunity to take advantage of those who want to come here to work, and they usually understand this. The only time when this can be a problem is in the case of the internships – more likely involving Indian university students – as some units can demand too much from interns which are dependent on receiving their mentor’s signature. 

Besides the material aspect, do volunteers have a hard time adapting to Auroville? Can Savi help them on an emotional-psychological level if this should prove necessary?

It is true that Auroville can be unsettling for volunteers, especially at the beginning.

Often volunteers have problems regarding accommodation and money, but if they have an emotional crisis they will probably leave. Some of them come to us with tears in their eyes. We try to remind them that it is ok to feel lost, and that solutions are available, but there is an ingredient in the “Auroville soup” that may be just too much for some of them to grasp. Sometimes they have been in contact with us for several months and when they come they can’t bear the vibration of the place, so they go.

We meet volunteers once in a while and we guide them, but they have a mentor at work who is seeing them every day, so this is the person responsible for supervising their work and supporting the volunteer as much as possible in other ways.

In case there is a problem with the unit where the volunteer is working, we can help them move elsewhere, but we don’t have the means to do more than that. 

The volunteer programme is a much-appreciated initiative of Savi. What is it about?

We noticed a while ago the need for volunteers to have a deeper understanding of Auroville, as they are very much concentrated in their work but curious about it, so we created this four-day programme to give a little introduction or glimpse of what Auroville is. They wouldn’t have had this chance otherwise. We introduce them to Integral Yoga and Awareness Through the Body,  we visit services like PTDC, farms and forest, and we introduce to them people who have been here since the beginning, so they can discover how diverse Auroville is and how motivated the Aurovilians are. We also want the volunteers not only to work but also to relax and have fun, so they really appreciate it. 

Box:

Savi receives around 300 volunteers per year from 30+ nationalities. This number is increasing every year. In the past 3 years, Indian volunteers increased by 15% while foreign volunteers increased by 24%. The majority of volunteers are in their 20’s.