Volunteering at Eco-Femme

My name is Melanie and I have been a full-time volunteer in Auroville since July 2014. I contribute my time to a unit called Eco Femme where I mostly work on sales, marketing and business strategy.

Eco Femme is a social enterprise with a global mission and reach, working in the area of menstrual hygiene management. In addition to promoting eco-positive menstrual practices, the project supports education for girls and livelihood for women. Eco Femme has designed a premium range of washable cloth pads that are available internationally and in urban India. Profits from sales help sustain the educational outreach work in rural communities, provide cloth pads at cost price to economically-disadvantaged women, and give the opportunity to Though Eco Femme is where I ended up as a volunteer, it is not how I got to discover Auroville... After writing my master’s thesis in France, I figured I would like to have an NGO work experience. This is how I originally arrived in South India, a year ago. For 6 months I was based in Pondicherry, which was my first gateway to the Auroville experience! Though I’m a travel addict, and find it difficult to stay in the same place for more than 5 months, I was somehow drawn to stay longer in the area and started looking for a volunteer opportunity in Auroville. Back then, I was still quite confused about what Auroville had to offer me and what I could contribute to this “city in the making”.

Being a volunteer for Eco Femme in Auroville has been one of the most amazing and inspiring experiences of my life so far. Some of the confusion about Auroville remains, but I think it has to do with the fact that Auroville has many faces. Personally, I experience Auroville as a social project incubator. There is no other place in the world that I know of where so many criteria come together to offer perfect conditions for social ventures!

It is maybe corny to say but, besides the joy of working for a beautiful project with wonderful colleagues, the highlight of my volunteering is realizing that working pro-bono can be much more enriching than working for a pay check. To actually experience this is awesome and very insightful; it’s a life lesson that will guide my future choices!

That being said, I feel very lucky! My unit helps me sustain my stay with diverse compensations and I have worked before coming here so that I wouldn’t lack money. For instance, I haven’t been particularly impacted by the BCC decision for volunteers to contribute Rs 900/month because my unit has offered to cover the cost for me. Though I fully understand the motivation behind this decision (i.e.: everybody pays contributions in Auroville and it is needed to ensure its growth), I’m not sure I fully agree with its logic. As I said, volunteering here makes me richer in experiences and knowledge. In the same way, volunteers make Auroville richer by contributing their time, skills and expertise. Should Auroville also ask them to contribute their money?