The safety and boundary awareness programme

Last October, YouthLink conducted a sexual harassment awareness campaign and recently followed up on that initiative by bringing together all the services within Auroville working on matters related to sexual harassment to create Safety & Boundaries Awareness (SBA). The intention is ‘to increase awareness, build an emotional support network, optimise prevention, and provide education within the community.’ Currently, SBA comprises YouthLink, Chrysalis, Maatram, CRP3 (Conflict Resolution Policy), Auroville Child Protection, AVSST, RA Working Committee, Jump Inward, Auroville Council, and Internal Complaint Committee.

SBA launched a two week awareness campaign on sexual harassment on April 10th, that started outside the Solar Kitchen entrance, with workshop pamphlets, information packs and energetic youth ready to answer queries and bring this topic literally into the light of the blazing day. As stated in the flyer, ‘Sexual harassment is a difficult topic around the world and in Auroville as well. We feel it’s important for us to bring awareness in our community and educate each other to create a safer environment.’

Lucrezia, one of the YouthLink organisers of SBA, was motivated by the chance to bring different community initiatives together as she had noticed relevant groups were not in contact with each other. She and others from YouthLink often get to hear of incidents as people reach out to them how to go about these situations. Lucrezia suggests that those who experience sexual harassment in and around Auroville “rarely find the right support” and many don’t feel able to talk about these incidents.

There exists a spectrum in the topic of harassment. Around Auroville, there seem to be several forms that are most prevalent. Peer-to-peer, occuring when peers behave in ways that ignore consent and boundaries, which Lucrezia adds “is why we need education.” Night-time roadside, most often involving individuals who are not a part of the community. Stalkers, a form of mental harassment that takes place over a prolonged period of time. Domestic violence, which happens in home settings by individuals familiar to the victim.

The SBA awareness campaign featured a mix of events, workshops and resource information, with some events having a minimum age (13 or 18) or involving parental consent to participate.

Events

‘Bravely Speak Out’ was a street theatre performance in Tamil on the topic of child protection, created by Yatra Arts Media in collaboration with Auroville Child Protection Awareness and supported by AVI Germany. The performance aimed to bring awareness on topics that are often not talked about: alcoholism, domestic violence and child sexual abuse. The play highlighted the importance of raising our children with love, care and protection and the fact that children can also play a role in staying alert and keeping safe in their community. The play was performed in several local villages.

The Chrysalis Game Show was ‘an exciting and fun team trivia game to test your knowledge of safety, dating, sexual health and more’ with prizes too. Chrysalis is an Auroville educational project focusing on health and well-being, puberty, self-esteem, menstrual care, consent and sexual education for youth and adults.

Workshops

The SBA collective offered an array of self-defence, healing and other learning sessions. Krav Maga, an Israeli martial art taught by Malaika, is described as ‘an effective, modern, and dynamic self-defence and fighting system… designed to be practical and intuitive for people of any age, shape, or size’ where ‘you will learn to defend yourself and your loved ones’. Giacomo and Youthlink offered a ‘Self-defence’ class which ‘is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The purpose of this workshop is to ‘minimise the risk of being a victim of assault or harassment, and how to behave in such cases’.

An interactive workshop on consent, ‘My Body, My Voice, My Body, My Boundaries, My Body, My Consent’, was offered to help participants learn how to say and receive a ‘No’, and how to respect our and others’ choices. Paula offered a session ‘My Body, my Health’ on anatomy and the physiology of sex and STDs where participants are informed with facts on sexual health and staying healthy. There was also an ‘Art Day’, facilitated by Lavanya, an artistic and musical journey to create a safe ‘space of harmony’.

Resources

Perhaps one of the more lasting results of this awareness push was the information pack that YouthLink have put together so it’s clearer who to contact for support should the need arise. The pack’s info-graphics offer accessible visual information covering many aspects including: consent, differentiating between sexual misconduct, harassment and abuse; different forms of harassment; verbal, physical, written and non-verbal; and what your options are if something has happened to you in Auroville. YouthLink has sent the packs to local schools and is making them available to youth at several other locations.

To bring all the groups involved in SBA together is a noteworthy accomplishment for YouthLink, more so to highlight issues that are often suppressed and taboo. Beyond the events, the empowerment message of what is and isn’t acceptable will be a legacy for the future.

There is a bitter sweetness to this initiative and its necessity. Bitter that sexual harassment and worse is so widespread in our world and that there is such dire need for education, sweet that so many different community groups and individuals are collaborating to address the need. Bitter that it’s the youth themselves who had to initiate the effort behind SBA, and sweet for the same reason.

For more information visit www.youthlink.org.in