Youth Centre

It all started in September 1998. Jean-François and I were at home when a group of teenagers, familiar faces from the Auroville schools, walked in with a quiet determination.

Four years into this crisis, I find myself searching for clarity on how we move forward. Yesterday, I came across a series of writings by Shannon Willis on Soft Rebellion that articulated what many of us have been intuitively practicing all along.

The Auroville Youth Center has sent out a mass bulletin to all residents stating that the Youth Center is a place of learning, exploration and personal growth for youth of all kinds and ages and that it has recently started to work closely with the community, creating various workshops such as welding, woodwork, kombucha making, mushroom cultivation; with more to come.

Youth Centre and YouthLink’s annual end-of-year fair took place on 21 December, attracting a sizeable and enthusiastic crowd. The organisers of Fair and Square (as the event was called) focused their efforts on showcasing the Youth Centre space as a vibrant social centre – or town square – prominently located on the Crown road.

Vaishali Jain, a radiant 27 year old young woman, known to her close friends as Vishu, left her body on September 1st due to a traffic accident.

This year’s AUM (Auroville Underground Music) Festival, organised by Youth Center, YouthLink and Svaram on March 16 and 17, featured two days of live music and performances by artists from in and around Auroville.

The women’s choir Auroville Harmonies performed a “Singing the World” concert at CRIPA on 2nd and 3rd March, conducted by Antoine. Ceramic artist Supriya Menon Meneghetti presented an exhibition titled “From Darkness to Light” at Centre d’Art, Citadines 8-23 March.

On the 4th January, many people were shocked to see many Service trees (Peltophorum pterocarpum/ Copper Pod tree) being felled on the Crown between the Solar Kitchen and Mahalakshmi Home.

On a sultry May summer’s evening, after one of its communal and tasty pizza nights, the Youth Centre (YC) premiered a documentary simply titled ‘The Youth Centre’.

Recently, Jay Naidoo, an ex-freedom fighter from South Africa, visited Auroville and addressed an important question to the youth: “You say you are open to everyone and invite people from all over the world, but have you actually created an environment where African people can integrate into the community?”

Over the past seven years, Lucrezia Fassi has been involved in various youth initiatives and projects including the Youth Center, Aura App, and Disha.

Some years ago, when I lived in Hong Kong, I hosted my friend Alan Watson Featherstone when he gave a series of talks on “Restore the Earth’.

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.’

Nahar Emet, now 22, was nine years old when he came to Auroville with his family. He attended Deepanam, TLC, and Last School, and then worked as CRIPA’s light and sound designer before joining the Youth Centre team.

Since the shocking events of early December, a few people have been working to transform and facilitate the trauma and emotions that were triggered.

This issue is almost entirely devoted to the tumultuous events of the last weeks which saw bulldozers removing trees planted by Auroville foresters and Auroville habitations in the Youth Centre, to clear a path for the Right of Way of the Crown, which is intended to connect the four zones of the city.

What Aurovilians are asking for is a town planning process that upholds and reflects the ideals of ‘the city the earth needs’.

Since the shock of the destruction of the buildings and forest clearance, the Youth Center (YC) has been receiving support and appreciation from the community.

To respected members of the Governing Board... Dear Aurovilians... Dear Dr. Jayanti Ravi... Dear friends of the Auroville Working Committee...

Frederick, who came to India in 1966 and has been living in Auroville ever since its inception in 1968, gives his view of the recent happenings.

As a therapist I know that one of the first steps to healing is to acknowledge trauma, whether individual or collective. This is an unusual article in that I invite the reader to hold and witness with compassion our inner and outer diversity as a community.

A year ago, in February 2020, there was an attempt to survey a route through the Youth Centre and Bliss forest for the laying of a High Tension cable.

Twenty six years ago, the youth were looking for a new home as Ami, which had been a youth community for many years, was no longer a welcoming environment.

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

On 29th December a new project was launched at the Aura Fest in the Youth Center. “Time for a shift to better align with our ideals! Come join us not for discussion but an action on our economy that promises to be fun and enriching,” ran the invitation.

Recently, the Youth Center has been holding ‘conscious learning nights’. In mid December, they invited Aurovik (Vikram Mani) to share his experience of living in Auroville for the past 15 years.

For six days in early January there was a collaborative planning workshop or charrette involving over 60 Aurovilians and visiting experts. The stated aim of Auroville - A Way Forward was to “bring the purpose of Auroville into our life, built environment and organization’.

Auroville displays an increasing amount of art in public spaces. Two of the recent murals are telephone-themed and are located on telephone boxes on the Auroville main road near Kindergarten and the Eukies field.

Tamil Nadu and many other parts of India are currently facing an unprecedented drought. This message was formally delivered by the Chief Minister on January 10th, 2017, declaring Tamil Nadu a drought-hit state.

The TreeHouseCommunity is an Auroville-based undertaking that consists of an international team of state-of-the-art Treehouse constructors. They share their unique combination of skills, in harmony with nature, around the world.

For some years, Vikram has been very much involved in youth and sports activities in Auroville. He is also deeply interested in conflict resolution and meeting process.

On Saturday November 28th, the weekly Saturday Market at the Auroville Youth Centre re-opened. Despite the threat of heavy downpours, eight stalls were set up in an effort to instill new energy into the ‘Localicious’ movement initiated by Krishna from Solitude Farm two years ago.

The article “Auroville’s spirituality” in the August-September 2015 issue of Auroville Today contains a section on the Auroville schools. Concern is expressed that many of Auroville’s youngsters hardly know of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and that most of the Auroville schools do not communicate anything of their vision.

YouthLink is a new youth group that aims to engage the youth in Auroville and the surrounding area and to work towards providing Auroville youth with, among other things, better opportunities in housing, higher education and employment.

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”.