It is the day before Christmas Eve and we started the day visiting the beautiful Auroville Botanical Gardens wandering around the premises discussing Aurovilian vegetation. Paul explained the difficulties he had faced working within Auroville and the organization’s need for a more sustainable and long-term financial solution. The idea is to develop a garden and plant outlet and other home decorations for plants as an innovative and creative solution to raise money. It is amazing to hear that all that green was just barren ground in the 1960s!

Next stop was the Raw Food Center where the founder Anandi described the benefits of raw vegan food. Vegan raw food is apparently relatively easy to make and here in Auroville it is also quite cheap to live as a vegan. The benefits extend further than the individual since vegan raw food is sustainable in many different ways including environmentally, economically as well as health wise for both humans and animals.
While there at the Raw Food Center we had the opportunity to try the food and Anandi maintained that we don’t need meat; it is based on desire and greed rather than needs.The fact that Anandi made such a clear, strong statement against the massive meat consumption was especially inspiring for me since I have been a vegetarian for a couple of years and could not agree more. The mass production of meat and semi-finished products causes so many unnecessary problems simply based on gluttony.
One of the basic concepts in Auroville is to make sure that everyone is able to meet their basic needs, a society based on needs rather than wants. I believe that many of us were inspired by Anandi’s passion for a vegan lifestyle and the work she does.

Another organization they managed to squeeze into our already loaded schedule was New Colors, an after-school program for underprivileged children. At New Colors the children can get help with homework, learn more English or computers, or simply hang out and feel safe. Many children here in the nearby villages come from poor homes and spend most of their time on the streets. Kumar, the founder of New Colors created the organization as a result of his own experiences in the village streets during his childhood. Alcoholism is a huge problem here which is one of the reasons for the children being out so late on the streets. Kumar and the others at New Colors aim to reach those children and provide a safe place for playing, learning and anything else a child could need. For Kumar, his wife Renana, and the children New Colors is everything. It is their safe haven, their playground, and their second home. The work done at New Colors is so important but I did not know just how much until I drove around in the small village of Edayanchavadi and saw the children wandering around the streets at night.

In Auroville there are a lot of organizations working in different ways with the empowerment of women. We have visited a few of these during the first few intense days. We  visited AVAG (Auroville Village Action Group), an organization that works with women from neighboring villages  helping them through micro finance. Another organization that is actively involved with women’s empowerment is Naturellement, a jam company and coffee shop that almost only employs women. A third organization is WELL paper (Women’s Empowerment Through Local Livelyhoods) which is a social enterprise offering both employment and training for groups of self employed women.

 Martina (in the pink shirt) – the woman who opened Naturellement and mainly employs women

A young woman making wallets for Aval 

Mother India, as this wonderful country is referred to, is ironically very patriarchal. I don’t think that there is anyone that missed what happened here, exactly a year ago. A terrible rape took place in New Delhi where a 23 year old girl was gang raped and afterwards thrown of a moving bus. On the 29^th of December she died from her injuries.

A year has gone by and one can only hope that India turned this awful event into some kind of collective will to change. In Auroville they might be on to something, but what about in New Delhi where girls can’t go on a bus without being molested?

In a Swedish newspaper they did a big spread on India one year after the rape. In this article they wrote that what is needed here in India and all over the world is a change in attitude. There must be a change from the government’s side and from the society as a whole. This unfortunately has not yet taken place in India, nor in the rest of the world for that matter.

In New Delhi after the rape thousands of people went out on the streets to protest. A couple of weeks after her death India passed a few new but controversial laws to deter violence against women. Rape now leads to a seven-year minimum sentence, with the death penalty for those cases where the victim dies.

You can kill one hundred or one thousand or even one million rapists, but the structural issues will remain.  As long as politicians keep making degrading statements like “women should not go out after dark” and “they should not be wearing western clothing” we are back where we started. If we have governments or policemen with these sorts of values neither  Indian nor Sweden, one of the worlds most equal country,  will ever achieve equality.  

Demonstrations in New Delhi after the rape of a 23 year old female student. 

image from: http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/dom-vantar-efter-new-delhi-valdtakt_8503016.svd

– Sofie Stensman, Linnaeus University

A week ago it was time for us to choose the organization we wanted to work with. I thought it was hard to choose just one organization since I was impressed by so many of them. After some consideration I decided to work with “Waste Less” a non-profit organization whose goal is to get people to recycle their waste. The day when the whole group went to visit waste less they strongly impressed me and the rest of the group. All of the actors involved where very engaged in the topic and the visit to the dump was also an emotional wake-up for many of us. So to have the opportunity to work with this organization was something I greatly appreciated.
Me and my colleague Natalie (AUP) have now organized several meetings to help the organisation to meet some of their challenges. This have made me more aware of the tremendous task Waste Less is facing in a country like India where recycle today is unknown to so many people. India is also a country where the poor are more interested in getting food for the day than to recycling their waste. To work alongside people who are so passionate about their work and goals has been inspiring and instructive. It is also frightened to realize that for the first time in my two and a half years of theoretical university studies to interact with a real organisation where they really need my help. In general I think that many of us were afraid and slept poorly the night before our first meeting with our organizations. Personally I think what frighten me the most is that it was for real this time, and that it was no longer possible to hide behind books and your classmates. The time constraint was also something which made the communication project more difficult. The difficulty as I see it, is that it takes more than two weeks to actually get to know an organisation and understand problems they may be facing. Even if we are at the organization every day, it still takes time to develop relations and help people feel comfortable opening up to outsiders.
Anyhow I think that this will be a task I will learn much from. Not only how an NGO works but also to learn how it is to work in the “real” world and I feel like Bambi stand on shaky legs, learning to walk for the first time.

As long as I recall there has been a critique on where all the foreign aid is going. The critics would say that aid is just a way of making the wealthy West wealthier. The Liberals on the other hand would consider aid as a way to integrate and develop the rest of the decolonized world.

The following is a true story of how the relationship between donors and beneficiaries is constructed. David and Paula, a couple from England, have been giving money every year to an NGO (Non- Governmental Organization) named Karuna. The organization in Britain receives money from thousands of generous people like David and Paula every year. The organization has certain values that they care about. In this story the focus will be on women empowerment and Dalit discrimination.

ADECOM is an NGO based in Pondicherry on the south east coast of India, in the region called Tamil Nadu. Despite the distance between the donor and the receiver, both organizations maintain a great relationship.

On their annual holiday, David and Paula decided to engage with reality. They have been giving money for 25 years. Finally they called Karuna, got a permission through ADECOM to visit the VTC (Village Training Center), and a few mouse-clicks later had organized a trip to India.

Finally on New-year’s day, the entire office at ADECOM was stuffed with people. David and Paula got the best chairs at the center. They were given a big golden necklace and were treated as VIPs. They listened to different speakers, who described the current situation and explained how the organization works towards future goals and visions for the society. The speeches turned out to be more of a question and answer session about the issues at hand.

After being offered a lunch, the car took them off to the VTC in the suburbs of Pondicherry. The women at the center are waiting. Now, finally their donors were coming, to see them sew. The women at the VTC explained in Tamil and demonstrated the skills. Some children ran around and the atmosphere was joyful. David and Paula got to talk to the women through an interpreter. They heard stories of how women without a prospect for a future actually had been empowered and the money coming in from the other continent was not in vain.

Some of the skills taught in VTC are sewing. The program is initiated to empower Dalit women in their struggle to find an income to survive on. In India today, 165 000 000 Dalits or “untouchables” are struggeling for survival. The discrimination is worst for women since both the gender- and the caste system works against them.

In the end Paula admitted that it had been very difficult for her in this situation. She felt like she had been an audience watching a show where women at the bottom of social ladder were forced to demonstrate their skills. In a perfect world this type of relationship wouldn’t be necessary. Not many organizations would let Westerners visit their projects. According to Paula, that’s because it leads to an uncomfortable situation between the donor and  beneficiaries when they meet.

The day ends with photos taken of everyone together at the training center. The mission is accomplished. The links in the production chain of aid are sealed. From the donor on the street giving money in London, through a Western organization, directly to an Indian organization and finally to the Dalit women in Pondicherry we have followed the relationships established. Later the clothes manufactured in the training center will be sold, providing an independent income for 50 women in rural India. The traditional view of just helping a few rather than none is accomplished, and the world continues its daily life like all of the other 364 days a year – but maybe with a few more smiles than before.

Carl Larsson, Linnaeus University, Sweden

At the ceremony in the suburb of Pondicherry. Here, the women at the center demonstrate their products from the village training center. David and Paula are looking at the outcome from the program they are supporting from England.   

Waste. Even the word brings a bitter taste to my tongue. There is too much littering and not enough reflection about it. We are all part of the process, whether we like to admit it or not. Although I consider myself aware of the problem and act on it in terms of recycling and avoiding plastic bags, I still have so much to learn.

But can I really make a difference? I have asked myself that question so many times. Wondering if my recycled milk cartons really save trees and whether the eco-friendly items I buy have less of an impact than the commercial products. Some people like to refer to life as a journey in which you constantly develop as a human being, and going to India has strengthened that interpretation of life for me.

The first time I became aware of the lack of knowledge about recycling is when I moved to New Zealand. They had no system of recycling, and when I asked my friends where I could deposit my plastic bottles they had no idea of what I was talking about. Coming to India has reinforced the feeling of how we humans destroy our planet without even thinking twice about it. In the end it does not matter where you come from or whether you recycle, it is the small things that count at the individual level.

Why carry your groceries home in plastic bags when you can bring your own bag? Why always take the car when the public transportation system is really good? Why leave non-biodegradable items in nature when you know they will litter our planet for hundreds of years? It is insane how easy it is to ignore these small steps toward a cleaner and healthier Earth, and how hard it is to change.

One of my favorite artists, Tracy Chapman, wrote a song on the subject and I cannot help but agreeing with her when she sing “Some claim to have crowned her a queen with cities of concrete and steel. But there is no glory, no honor, in what results from the rape of the world”.

Let us all contribute to a cleaner and healthier planet and start thinking about the small things. Stop putting the blame on others and examine your own behavior, for that is what will matter in the long run.

Small Steps – Eco-friendly bags

Eco Femme – Resusable cotton pads

WELLPaper – From waste to design

Bamboo Centre – Sustainable material for a wide range of products

Wasteless – “Reduce, reuse, and recycle”

Louise Jönsson Andersson, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden

Hello!
My name is Isabell Sundman and I am in my senior year in undergraduate studies in Development Communication at Linnaeus University, Sweden. 
What else you need to know about me is that Bob Marley’s sweet tunes of Sun is Shining is constantly playing in my head. Also, for me freedom is to walk barefoot but I shouldn’t here due to scorpions and venomous snakes.

There are as many definitions and perceptions of Sustainable Development as there are individual in Auroville. So by what means can one use communication to maintain the concept alive and functional within such unique place as Auroville?

When there is a lack of opportunities for Aurovilians to contribute their own knowledge into their community it could reduce chances of mainting the current culture of Sustainable Development. This culture is evident in Auroville’s vocabulary where alterations have been made.  For example taxes are referred to as contributions and instead of the word governance one talks around it without using an actual word. These changes are needed for Auroville to dissociate itself from the main stream society that lacks the values of human unity and universal solidarity which Aurovilians are searching for. Creating unique ways to communicate, contributes to sustainability by creating feelings of inclusiveness, this is what is applied by being a true Aurovilan, which appears to be of great importance and it is the sense of community that maintains the concept of Sustainable Development alive and functional within Auroville

Furthermore..
Auroville is without laws; the legal system dependence on the individual’s strive to behave as “a true Aurovillian”.  Social Pressure upholds Auroville and its culture. It retains people within the frames and insures that no one misbehave which in the worst case can lead to exclusion from the community. Communication is a useful tool to use when social pressure needs to be shared amongst people. I believe within Auroville there is an understanding of the importance of communications to guide human behavior.
Click on the link to discover how to become a true Aurovillian. http://www.auroville.org/vision/tobeatrueavlian.htm

Love, Isabell Sundman

Hello Johannes writing.

Some thoughts and reflections from my first week in India, is that Auroville is a really cool and interesting place. You know when you get that feeling –why haven’t I done this before? That is the feeling I get being here in Auroville.  As I have experienced it so far this is a place with a lot of love and an aspiration for solidarity and happiness for everyone. Who would not want to visit a place like that?

I have met a lot of interesting people and my view of the world is getting clearer through this experience.  There are loads of different projects going on here in the spirit of better sustainable and alternative approaches. It is impossible to explain this place in a blog post, so I will just recommend a visit instead, to get a preview and more information you can watch this youtube-documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrlYo75fSXU.

It has also been exiting to get to know this place and to realize that there are more searchers, spiritual people and philosophers out there trying to find a sustainable way to live a happy life filled with love. I hope you are also one of them otherwise become one. Love is cool, not tribal-tattoos and MTV 😉

Ps. Of course India with its heat, culture, geckos and beaches are attractions to see as well, but that is not unique to the same extent as Auroville is to me. This is why I focused on the community Auroville and its interesting people in this blog post.

To sum it up, so far very good, interesting and inspiring. It doesn’t matter to me that it sometimes feels like I am in the Dharma initiative in the TV-series Lost. Their village was even  called Dharmaville by the way, if I am not mistaken J But do similarities with them have to be a bad thing?

Take care // Johannes Öhlund, Auroville, December 25, 2013

Dec. 30, 2013

“Individuals and society are mutually dependent and influential. Better-informed individuals will create better-informed society even as the latter influences the behavior of the former.” JV Vilanilam, Development Communication in Practice

Everyone’s development communications projects started today. Twenty students will work for two weeks at 13 organizations with mainly education, social justice and environmental protection mandates. The students, in our first day without a set schedule for everyone, headed out to meetings with the heads of our chosen organization to discuss and outline a sustainable communication project to complete and handover before the end of the India Practicum. 

This year there is an undeniable dynamism and cohesive energy between the joint group of AUP and Linnaeus students that leads to a unison and flow of events, creating an admirably productive atmosphere. This relates to our projects in that this year they effortlessly got divided up between the group. There was no tug of war or tension during the choosing process and everyone was both pleased with their assignment and happy for their peers.

Excitement and anxiety meshed together as we began our work, trying to balance great empathy for each group’s work and with wanting to help detail a concrete final project that could be beneficial to each organization in the mid- to long-term.

Kristina and I met with Chandrah and Ribhu, the founders of Wasteless, and will focus on writing one grant proposal and working on an existing fellowship proposal as well as a social media manual and some promotional material for the larger-scale launch of an educational card game called Pick-It-Up. WasteLess is a non-profit organization that works, mainly through a class curriculum developed for children aged 6 to 13, to educate people on better practices for rubbish management and disposal. The work WasteLess does had my attention from the start and then Ribhu’s energy during a presentation to our class was very appealing. The defining element that cemented my decision to work with WasteLess was a very simple yet very key paradigm shift: the idea that we have of throwing something away doesn’t exist. You cannot dispose of things, they stay on our planet and this means “throwing away” has just become a vail for putting waste out of site, or making it someone else’s problem to deal with.

I look forward to seeing how each project wraps up and to embracing the spirit of cooperation and collaboration that exists among all the students staying at Mitra Youth Hostel. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to take this class in this setting and even luckier that randomness produced this amazing group of people to live this experience with.

–Natalie Weeks

The 28^th of December was decision making day.

We have been here for almost two weeks and have met so many passionate people. I would have wanted to work with all of them if I could. All the information that we had received was spinning in my head and I did not know how to choose. So I just went with what feel right. I was most drawn to an organization called Yatra Arts Foundation so they became my first choice. And that is exactly what I got! It is weird how you’re mind seems to have made up its mind without you even knowing. Yatra is an organization that works with after school programs for youth and there you can for example take dance, music and art lessons. They also have evening tutoring. One specific thing that I like is that they make videos and short films and try to educate in particularly young people about social issues.

I feel that I can help them within communication but also that they can simultaneously enrich my knowledge. The ways the issues in the films are portrayed are according to the model of edutainment. It is probably why I was so intrigued by the organization. To go from reading about it in books to see people using it in practice is very interesting. To use edutainment in a setting like this I feel can be very effective. To twist an important issue that people may not think about into something fun and amusing is a smart way to educate the public in a discreet manor. This allows the organizations to focus in a more joyful manner and not only focus on the negative aspects, especially when it comes to children. So my hopes are that I will be able to help them and meet their needs and also that I will learn not only from my own projects but also the organization. They seem to be such wonderful people and you can really see how passionate they are about their work. It is a beautiful thing to see, that they do not think it is boring to go to work every day but instead look forward to it. This seems to be a common thread with all the NGO´s we have had the chance to visit.

It was a bitter sweet feeling choosing just one organization. I was so happy to get the opportunity to work with Yatra but at the same time I feel bad for the organizations that did not get picked. Hopefully they will want to participate next year and we´ll have the opportunity to work with them then.

Check out the video below of Yatra Arts Foundation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EXgEP89vug

/Damla Mol Linnaeus University