The Learning Community (TLC)

On April 17th, the SAIIER board informed TLC (The Learning Community) that SAIIER has decided to withdraw all financial support for TLC (facilitators’ maintenances and running budget), to reclaim all assets accumulated over the years, and that the TLC Base Camp has to be vacated by July 2024.

In the heart of Auroville’s The Learning Community’s (TLC) base camp, where the gentle whispers of the wind were rustling along with the vibrant hum of creativity, a humble spectacle unfolded during the sacred week of Auroville’s Birthday.

One of Auroville’s young children, Tara Nayak, had a lethal fall from the roof of Sunship on November 7th. She was 12 years old. Born in Delhi, Tara came to Auroville in 2019 at the age of 8 with her mother Fakeera, and studied at The Learning Community (TLC) and in later years at Deepanam school.

The Auroville Youth Center’s (YC) annual gathering, themed this year as the ‘Find Yourself Festival’, took place on 16-18 December. The community was invited ‘to come together to celebrate in a safe, joyful, and playful space for the realization of human unity.’

A year ago, students from The Learning Community [TLC: see Auroville Today April 2022, no. 393] cycled to Cinema Paradiso to watch a movie on Summerhill School.

Auroville’s second Endangered Craft Mela took place in February, and it was a lively event. For one week, the Youth Centre was transformed into a hive of activity, with 50 craftspeople sharing their skills and 250 excited children being inducted into the pleasure of making objects with their hands

Sagarika Bhati was born and raised in Auroville. She is among the few students who chose to follow the Free Progress system of education offered in some schools in Auroville.

On April 25th, Paulien of Vikas passed away in the Intensive Care Unit of the East Coast Hospital in the presence of her sister Mariette and her friend Betty.

Aikya has lived in Auroville for the past twenty two years. Here she describes how her quest to understand the meaning of life led her to a deeper understanding of the natural world.

Manas discovers in Auroville the educational experiment he dreamed of years ago.

Glimpses of Wonder – Children in Auroville Creating Worlds on Sand, describes the experiences of Aurovilian Aikya, a Belgian psychologist, working with Auroville children from The Learning Community in the World Game, a term usually described as “Sandplay Therapy.”

“All of the issues are interconnected,” says Krishna on a sultry summer afternoon, when asked about Solitude Farm’s Circle Garden Project. “The issue of water, the issue of land use, the question of why there is a stockpile of Auroville-grown rice sitting at Annapurna Farm, the question of our relationship to food and where it comes from.

Art Break Day is a community art event which occurs in locations around the world on the first Friday in September, including 29 sites this year in Mexico, the Netherlands and the US.