3 Development of Community Life
3.1 NEED FOR BETTER COMMUNITY
3.1.1 To create again a community where we all feel home and part of a big family, beyond cultural, social, financial, racial differences. A community where our youth want to live when they grow adults, not because they don’t know where to go or what else to do, not because life is easier than in the villages, not because they don’t have the financial means or the educational background to live somewhere else in the world, but because the community has developed an atmosphere of growth, of adventure, of brotherhood that gives a special sense to their life
3.1.2 We as a community as a whole need to find our CENTRE. Why is it only, that when there are extreme cases like Sydo’s murder, that we all come together for a short while…that we feel bonded to one another, for a short while, and then everyone continues to live in his own way…what is lacking? what will bring us all together and keep us together, not just for a short while, but for years to come???? What, what??
3.2 COMMUNICATION BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS
3.2.1 Smile more… J
3.2.2 Respect for all, for Aurovillians old ones and new ones, Newcomer and Guests and their individuality
3.2.3 Invest more time in knowing and improving relations with our neighbours
3.2.4 Replace criticism by support + loving feed back
3.2.5 Increase communication within Auroville.
3.2.6 Be friendly with each other: No more grumpy faces!
3.2.7 Get people to loosen up –take themselves less seriously
3.2.8 I wish Aurovillians to inform themselves about each other without gossip, care about each other so that also the share of financials is easier
3.2.9 Build trust- through regular sharing of information
3.2.10 Better relation among Aurovillians (more unity)
3.2.11 Better communication between the Aurovillians.
3.2.12 Community wise consciousness – Family is unity
3.2.13 Personal contact with people.
3.2.14 Inter community interactions
3.2.15 We don’t know each other anymore. A systematic, periodic way of introducing new people to the existing community should be created. I would like to be able to hear people, both new and old, speak about what brought them here – their commitments, circumstances, vision. I’ve been here almost 9 years now and have always had the sense of not knowing what we had to work with, human resource-wise. Entry Group announcements of Newcomers in the N&N should include a photo and be much more substantial in terms of introducing people
3.2.16 More smiles and smiling.
3.2.17 Enhance inter Aurovilian communication.
3.3 LANGUAGE
3.3.1 Spoken English and Tamil
3.3.2 Get everyone really learning Tamil!
3.3.3 A compulsory fulltime crash course in Tamil language and culture for any person that is going to live in Auroville. A three month course 30 up to 40 hours a week could be considered. The situation of people living for ten years or more in Auroville without being able to put up with a single conversation in Tamil is really too much.
3.3.4 Give classes in Tamil to Tamil Aurovilians about life in a community, human unity and how to achieve it
3.3.5 More courses for languages – eg Tamil and English
3.4 METHODS OF COMMUNICATION
3.4.1 Radio Station (with 2 KM radius)
3.4.2 See to it that everything in “News and Notes” is translated into Tamil. Encourage Annemarie to free herself from self-censorship.
3.4.3 Invest in communication infrastructure – for rapid communication / feedback/ decision making.
3.4.4 Communication (telecom, internet, radio, TV, print …..etc)
3.4.5 A magazine called Vision Auroville
3.5 PLACE TO GET TOGETHER
3.5.1 Would be great if Auroville had a place where one could ‘hang out’ in the evening, chat with friends, have a good juice and a sandwich. Just a place for clean fun – we are so uptight due to all the work pressures.
3.5.2 There should be a place where all can meet casually for games, talk, videos, listening to music. Kosmos Kafe was a step in the right direction.
3.5.3 Places to meet, others than meetings or restaurants, to enjoy being together after the movie for ex., a convivial place, like the Kosmos coffee, that is not closing at 8.30PM… To share, to communicate, to drink a lemon juice, to dance on life music, etc… Even if it is just a place opened just once a week or a month, will be great.
3.5.4 Create place like cosmos café
3.5.5 Create a space for Kosmos – like activities.
3.5.6 Have public spaces for the youth (open beyond 9pm!)
3.5.7 Go on with more gathering “cosmos café type”)
3.5.8 Have a permanent meeting place in interaction and exchanges
3.5.9 Entertainment (restaurants, cafes, movies, theater, sports …. Etc )
3.5.10 A community centre to meet – like the Kosmic café.
3.6 WAYS OF COMING TOGETHER
3.6.1 More celebration, coming together with whole of AV
3.6.2 Collective festivals, Deepavali, Pongal, Christmas, New Year ,AV, Ma’s Sri Aurobindo’s B’day
3.6.3 Take steps to improve the quality of our communal life-community Eating, community games, festivals etc.
3.6.4 Music live once a week.
3.6.5 Develop outing from AV to other places in India.
3.6.6 More full moon walks, cycling trips and just walks around AV in day and night times.
3.6.7 Let’s build ring road together!
3.6.8 Community picnics, tours, outings, get-togethers with lunch, dinner, amongst Aurovilians, with friends of Auroville, with long term associates, etc.
3.7 TAKING CARE OF EACH OTHER
3.7.1 A way to take care of people, particularly youth who become psycologically unbalanced.
3.7.2 To bring about a greater caring for each other by creating a safe, homely, medically oriented and realistic approach and place for those of us who may be, temporarily, disoriented or otherwise in need of psychological care (this certainly in regard to our youth).
3.7.3 Parties with alcohol and drugs do incalculable harm to AV on many levels and a way must be found to stop them once and for all, whatever it takes, even if it involves not renewing the visa to the incoscients who organize them.
3.7.4 Encourage rather than discriminate against each other.
3.8 INVOLVE THE YOUTH
3.8.1 Mobilize and Auroville youth to take an active part in the management and realization of the city. That means how to motivate them to learn something useful for Auroville and to do it?
3.8.2 Youth gatherings.
3.8.3 See what more we must provide for the adolescent youth in Auroville and do it.
3.8.4 Kids go into dope. Can we arrange for them a group with a few adults who know how to use “the profit of smoking”? It could let kids not use “grass” as the way of wiping from the reality. Mauna has some Information.
3.8.5 Give youth responsibilities and bring them to the main stream.
3.8.6 To train the youth and children to become true Aurovillians for which adults should be role models
3.8.7 Read and explain Mother + Sri Aurobindo To the kids – explain to them the goal of AV; What it mean to change one’s consciousness, How to change one’s consciousness.
3.8.8 Channel the youth force
3.8.9 Support the youth rather than building retirement homes.
3.8.10 A light point for the game: The peacock’s population is exploding and destroying gardens and silence. Unfortunately the peacock is in India is a protected bird. May be as part of a new game, children can be rewarded if they can find and collect their eggs!!?
3.8.11 Craft training for AV youth.
3.9 SECURITY
3.9.1 Security (especially in the evening/nights and holidays) also more security for women (example. Eve-teasing by locals and etc..
3.9.2 Finally an idea could be picked up form Holland as regards the crime situation. There in the 250, 000 Citizens city of Almere, the safety situation had been deteriorating over the years. Finally a mediation group did an offer to the Town Council. They promised to bring down the crime rate with 25% meditating each week on bringing down crime. They got a place somewhere in the centre of the city and in fact they brought down crime by meditating on it and nothing else. The experiment worked and has been going on ever since.
3.9.3 Security (No police!! internal or alternative presence)
3.9.4 Better security (though I feel this is now being implemented )
3.9.5 Auroville guards – training, replace MM guards, etc
3.10 OTHER
3.10.1 Provide opportunities for meditation at MM and silence………..
3.10.2 Summer exodus.
3.10.3 We have become too Tamil in composition, which limits possibilities for all of us (including the Tamil Aurovilians).
3.10.4 Reduce the flourishing materialism in AV.
3.10.5 No more junk food!
