YouthLink Auroville to the Future

A Week in YouthLink

Following our weekly Monday meeting we divide into our subgroups of Events, Education, Projects or Admin. Each subgroup designs their own weekly schedule together. We are all aware of the need to lead more integral lives, so we attempt this by dividing our time into Head, Heart and Hands.

During the week we spend some time for the Head in the office, working from our laptops or brainstorming together. We also spend some time with our Hands; cleaning, cooking, farming or constructing something for Auroville. If possible we focus on projects that support the integration of our members in Auroville, by helping them build a garden, or housing-pod. Last but definitely not least, we dedicate time to our Heart. We choose inspiration for learning something new to develop ourselves through attending other workshops in Auroville. Our Heart-time gives us the freedom to continuously explore Auroville and ourselves – on the condition that whatever we learn we bring back to other youth through YouthLink somehow.

“In the last two months I have learnt some non-violent-communication tools and massage skills. I hope this can benefit my team as many of us have sore muscles after construction and sometimes we need more awareness for our team-communication. Maybe one day I could even facilitate this workshop for other youth.” Mathilde explains how her Heart exploration enriches the collective.

Beyond the organisation of the week through subgroups and a time shared between the Head, Heart and Hands, the first day of the week reflects this spirit and intention we dedicated to a more integral and collective life.

A Monday in YouthLink

HEART – CHECK IN

“Good morning everyone ! Who wants coffee?” Sathish calls out with a big warm grin on his face.

Our morning starts at 9am. We know our rhythm: as young adults we would rather work late into the evening, than start too early in the morning. Walking into the office feels like coming home, ready to receive a minimum of two to three hugs – hugs with back rubs, big warm bear hugs, and intense tight hugs filled with light. Each one of us slowly waking up to how the others feel today. We settle down on a mat circle on the floor, cross our legs on pillows, aligning our spine, closing our eyes, and beginning to observe.

Anwar begins guiding us gently, “Notice your breath, notice your heart beat, notice your thoughts as they pass by. How do you feel today?”

As we are guided into stillness, we allow ourselves a few minutes of silence. Once we hear the sound of the shaker, we gently open our eyes and bring our attention back to the circle. Our week starts by letting one another know how we feel today. Each one feels different, some tired, some energized. We practice our deep listening to really hear where the person is at and evaluate who needs support and who can offer support.

HEAD – EVALUATION & PLANNING

“So, who wants to facilitate, who wants to take notes, and who wants to start sharing?,” Quentin asks, to which Sudipta and Arul quickly volunteer.

Each week different members volunteer to hold space. It is part of our effort to share leadership; to try and circulate roles so that each member can have space to practice empowering themselves. This week we look at upcoming events such as the ‘Human Library’ organized by Events team, upcoming workshops such as the ‘Auroville Peer Education Training’ organized by the Education team, and progress relating to the design of the ‘Makers Lab’ organized by our Projects team. Our Admin team holds us all together, supporting data entry, website, accounts and communications. These are the three domains of work we engage in.

We are on average 12 members, and each team has three people. We also aim for a balance of one Volunteer, Newcomer, and Aurovilian in each subgroup. Thus, we try to reflect our goals of integrating youth in Auroville and to maintain a diversity of status and nationality within our team. We do not actively seek out new membership – youth who need our platform naturally gravitate towards this collective space.

HANDS – COLLECTIVE WORK

“Who wants to plug in some music?,” Melodie asks, as others are already rolling mats and stacking pillows.

Before we split up into subgroups for the week, we begin our cleaning together. Mopping floors, scrubbing the toilet, segregating the trash and tending to the kitchen garden. We have shifted our office every year – from a desk at SAIIER, to a hall at Bharat Nivas, to a co-working space at Auromode, to an office at Progress, and now to a hall at Humanscapes. We have been committed to cleaning our own space throughout, because the cleanliness of our space reflects not only our values of self-responsibility, but also reflects the state of our inner consciousness at this moment. The space we welcome you to, the circle we create in our workshops, the gardens we design and pods we build, are all reflections of who we are at this moment in time. Manifesting ourselves through beauty in matter is not an easy task - it takes discipline and daily attention to detail. Many days we look around ourselves at the clutter, reminded again and again that we have a lot to work on, inside.

Youth Link vision statement

“YouthLink is a collective space for youth to progress in the Auroville spirit of service and evolution of consciousness.”

“Writing a collective vision statement for YouthLink only took us only about three years,” one member says while laughing happily.

We are all aware that working collectively takes more time. But the results are immensely rewarding. We have had some deep learnings over the years.

2015-16:

“…the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within…”

YouthLink was born out of a collective call for more youth engagement in Auroville. In 2015, many of you may remember the “Auroville Retreat”, a large community effort to create space for reflection regarding what Auroville has achieved, and planning for where Auroville wants to go. This is where, as part of the reflection on being a bridge between the past and the future, suddenly it became obvious that the youth were missing in the picture. A few youth joined this process, researching the lack of youth engagement, and presenting the results to the older generations at this forum. Together with the older generations, we formulated goals – for youth and education, youth and economy, youth and growth, and so on, for bioregion, town planning and governance.

It was an outstanding task-list set before us. A long agenda of To-Do’s, for which our young team had little to no experience. However, what we did have was a lot of idealism, an adamant will, and a fantastic capacity to dream. We set our mind to the goals we had been given. How could we design more apprenticeships? How could we build more housing? How could we work on employment? And what did “youth empowerment & inclusion”, the goal defined in the process, really mean to us?!

The first years, in 2015 and 2016, were quite chaotic and challenging for our young team. Our members fluctuate regularly – most of us working after hours to support YouthLink as volunteers, since funds were scarce. With eventual support from the community (Budget Coordination Committee) and from abroad (Stichting De Zaaier), we gained more stability in the second year. Now, more members were able to commit to this as a place of work and be supported to do so.

2016-17:

“… the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.”

In order to tackle community needs such as Education, Housing and Employment, we needed to first understand how Auroville works and what was available. That soon led to our team designing our own learning program – inspired by “Ecovillage Design Education”, an international framework used in communities worldwide, we adopted our own version and called it “Community”. Through this month-long exploration we discovered the various projects and units in Auroville relating to Economy, Ecology, Social and Worldview. Through this course we also learnt about basic project design and project management tools to begin designing solutions for our long agenda of tasks. More importantly, we allowed ourselves and the participants to engage in a deep exploration of oneself in order to find what we call “your offering” to the world.

2017-18:

“…. a site of material and spiritual research for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.”

We soon began to tire, many youth came to YouthLink with a high level of enthusiasm and energy, very ready to serve Auroville. We were all working hard to fill the gaps and meet the many expectations and needs of our community.

We soon discovered that we had to better understand what ‘being in service’ truly meant. Many of us were working so sincerely for the collective that we had forgotten ourselves. Who am I? What are my interests? If we were to serve Auroville through the right process – we realized this could only happen if we were true to our own inner needs for development. So we turned the tables immediately.

Each new member joining our team takes time to learn this concept. We have to change the way our mind works in order to fully grasp it. I am here to work on myself first – then only will I be able to benefit others as well. It is an inside-out process. So now when people ask us “what is YouthLink, and how can I join?” We ask them “Who are you and what are you searching for in life?”

Vignesh explains his example, “If I am able, through YouthLink, to build my own temporary-pod to live in – then with that design and process, I will be able to help many others as well.”

2018-19:

“But, to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the divine consciousness.”

“To work in YouthLink one begins to realize that whatever I create for myself, I can and must share with others,” Kavitha observes nostalgically, remembering when YouthLink had started. Today we have our first YouthLink members beginning to plan their ‘graduation’ out of the platform. We are very aware of the need for a proper succession plan. Those who came first, who have benefited from this platform, should soon move out and give their seat to the next youth who needs a collective space to support their integration in Auroville.

Integrating in Auroville is evidently much deeper than any workshop or project can support. We have learnt this through our work. It takes time to understand that integration also means service, surrender and self-care. All levels of our being are involved, whether we are aware of it or not. YouthLink is a process and an invitation for a new world.

If youth are to link Auroville to the future, we hope that you will support us… no matter your age, nationality or other unnecessary constructs.

“We are developing a mini accelerator within the larger Auroville accelerator.” Michael explains, “Will you join us?”