Auroville’s youth explore a better future

A young boy stood at the table, his pencil hovering over his paper, his mind searching for what to write. He had spun a colourful wheel in the “Quality Game” at the Festival of Ideas held on Mother’s birthday, February 21, and had landed on the word, “Courage”. The moderator of the game said, “OK, now: how do we increase the presence of courage in Auroville?” The boy thought for a moment and then looked up. “What does courage mean?” Once the moderator gave his thoughts, the boy turned to his paper and fervently scribbled down his idea.

This was one of many opportunities young people had to share their thoughts and inspirations on how to move closer to Auroville’s ideals. The Festival of Ideas, held on February 21, aimed at bringing together Auroville youth around one question: based on Auroville’s ideals, how can we make Auroville better?

The topic of youth was included in the Retreat in the hope of bridging the gap currently felt between the older people in working groups and the young people of Auroville, defined as between ages 15-25. In the past, there have been challenges of communication between these groups, but these difficulties are increasingly being bridged by the discovery that both share the same concerns and interests for a better Auroville.

For the Auroville Retreat, youth were encouraged to share practical solutions for the development of our community. This brainstorming started with a few individuals visiting schools like Last School, New Era Secondary School, Udavi, and Future School. Then all schools in the region were invited to participate in two brainstorming sessions at the Youth Centre campus. What resulted from these forums was the idea for a larger, community-wide event, which took on the name “Festival of Ideas”. The event took place at the Youth Centre and was attended by all age groups who came to share their time and genius in positive collaboration for building a better community.

At the entrance of the festival, various booths were set up for them to share their ideas through a variety of colourful games, with names like, “Solve a Problem!” or “Things You Like”. There was also a poetry competition, live music, the Farmer’s Market, a flying fox zipline, and a Garbage Art Competition.

Throughout it all, youth walked around the event talking and handing out sheets to the visitors to collect ideas. There were many suggestions, such as the creation of an Auroville Youth Council, with a budget, that would represent and support the youth for many generations to come. Other concerns touched many urgent issues facing youth, such as housing, employment, maintenances, gift economy, higher education, internships, and security, relationship with the villages, and relationship to the world. The entire list of ideas emerging from these discussions was compiled by a handful of youth ambassadors and presented at the Auroville Retreat in March.

The Festival was different. Firstly, it was planned by and for Auroville youth. Also, instead of allowing space for complaints and frustrations, the organizers used games, music and art to focus on the dreams and direct manifestation of Auroville’s ideals. The atmosphere was one of celebration and possibility.

At an open meeting for the community on 28th March, the youth made the presentation that they had delivered earlier at the Retreat.

They began by defining their overall goal – to recognize the potential in youth and support their involvement in the development of Auroville – and then listed their four most important sub-goals:

1. Involve youth in creating enough housing for different youth age groups and different youth needs

2. Support student’s educational needs by connecting schools, ideas, cultures and individuals

3. Create space and job opportunities for young Aurovilians to express themselves through work.

4. Have a functioning Auroville Youth Resource Team by the end of the year

Among a long list of things they want to do or want to happen was that all Working Groups put a chair aside for any interested youth as silent observers/interns/working members, and that all youth housing projects should involve youth in their discussions. They would also like to have older mentors to help guide youth when requested to do so. The meeting ended with the youth requesting older Aurovilians who were willing to be mentors to fill out forms. On these forms they were invited to specify in which areas they would be willing to mentor youth, and they were asked to make a time commitment.

It is not often that Auroville meetings combine so effectively high idealism with good, confident communication and clear-sighted objectives. The youth are showing us the way.