“There are many more Aurovilians in the world”

Kavitha was one of four Aurovilians who recently attended the Global Eco-village Networks’ (GEN) 20+ Summit, held in Findhorn, Scotland. There she represented Auroville as well as Youth Link. Auroville Today caught up with Kavitha to learn more about her experience at the Summit.

How did you come to know about the conference?

When I was studying at university in the Netherlands,I wrote my thesis about the work of GEN, particularly its Eco-village Design Education (EDE) curriculum and its relevance to Auroville, so I’ve been researching their work since 2012. Other conferences have been expensive to get to, but I didn’t want to miss this one. It was a celebration of 20 years of GEN and 10 years of Gaia Education, from which the EDE has emerged.

What was it like to represent Auroville at the conference?

It was great. People there generally knew about Auroville; they’d either heard about it or they’d visited. But they often had a very rosy picture of Auroville. They didn’t really know as much about our challenges.

What was the youth presence like at the conference?

NextGEN is the youth wing of GEN, and they were present at the conference, but pretty well integrated into the overall network. It’s not difficult to be a NextGEN Youth Member, as our Youth Link team here is already doing that type of work. What was nice to see is that GEN supports NextGEN through funding. One young couple traveled from eco-village to eco-village and shared their stories between communities, and their project benefited from GEN funding.

You gave a presentation on Auroville at the conference. What was that like for you and how did it go?

It was challenging! With all of these amazing eco-villages represented, I had to really think about how Auroville was different. Joss from Pitchandikulam helped a lot. I told them the basic story of Auroville, but I highlighted a few aspects. I told them that what is unique about Auroville is its support and recognition from the Government of India. Many other eco-villages don’t have such strong support from their country’s government. There’s also the spiritual aspect. Other communities may hold higher ideals or philosophy, and some may not. However, Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy has really grounded Auroville comparatively. We have guidance through texts on integral education, for instance, and a lot more. For us, it’s so simple because it’s already written, whereas other communities are writing it themselves, which must be pretty tough. Overall, the presentation was really well received. A lot of people were particularly impressed with our Government of India and UNESCO recognition. They also loved the idea of the Sustainable Livelihood Institute (SLI), as an example of an institution being created on the basis of a collaboration between eco-village and government. The government coming to Auroville to learn from its ‘green’ solutions is a huge achievement in the eyes of other eco-villagers.

After returning, you wrote on Auronet, “I had an uncomfortable realization about how Auroville seems to have lost its sense of ‘community’ and ‘togetherness’ and I was humbled by the many excellent examples from the world that we could learn a lot from.” Can you elaborate on that?

I felt a real sense of community at Findhorn. There was a lot of sharing, mutual respect, and time given for addressing issues within the community. We don’t have the same atmosphere at our General Meetings. We also don’t have the same community spaces for meeting. Places like Aspiration and Aurodam used to be alive and active; people would come together for sports and holidays. But now they’re just spaces where the collective life has disappeared. Why are Solar Kitchen and the Unity Pavilion our central meeting spots? I’m definitely concerned about our sense of community. We need a safe environment and healthy lifestyles, but we also need a community in which people are more connected to one another.

One thing that tends to dilute our sense of community is our population size. Most of the eco-villages present at the conference were 200 people or less, but Auroville is in comparison very big, and that presents a challenge. Another challenge is clarity around a shared goal. In early days, I think the cause of the pioneers was clear; rejuvenating the land and building the physical city brought them together. Today the youth have to find their cause in Auroville, and it’s not really the physical building but it’s on the social level. We need to figure out how we are going to develop as a society.

How do you envision the future relationship between Auroville and GEN?

There’s a lot of potential for future collaboration with GEN. At this conference, Auroville officially became a registered member of the Global Eco-village Network, which was a step forward. Further, there was a discussion about creating exchange programmes between eco-villages, especially for the youth. There could be a 3, 6, or 9 month house-exchange programmes.

I also think that Auroville would benefit from using the EDE framework to better understand the way our community functions and further understand our problems. It is an educational framework that looks at a locality through several lenses: worldview, economy, social, and ecological. More Aurovilians could be a part of these courses. Marti has been hosting these courses in Auroville on occasion, and we may be having more EDE trainers coming as well.

It would be also be great to host the GENOA (Oceana and Asia) friends in Auroville more often, and to connect with our geographical neighbors and their projects more closely.

Right now, we’re working to create a team and also working to create an outreach desk for Auroville’s many connections to the world. GEN is one of these connections; we can foster relationships with other GEN members, welcome and host them in Auroville if they come, as well as work on the exchange and education programmes I just mentioned. The Auroville International centres are another connection. Right now we’re trying to incubate the outreach desk at Pitchandikulam.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

From my experience of spending one week in Findhorn, I really opened up from the heart, and learned a lot. Just meeting people from all of the different communities and listening to their stories and being together was eye-opening. There are many more Aurovilians in the world, and we have a lot to learn from them! If more youth could visit other eco-villages, I think it would naturally facilitate an integration of what they learned when they return to Auroville. I hope that many more Aurovilians get to visit these communities, and that we realize that we’re not the only place in the world trying to do something special.

To learn more about the work of GEN, visit: http://gen.ecovillage.org. To learn more about the Gaia Education & the EDE, visit: http://www.gaiaeducation.net/index.php/en/