Auroville Village Action Group

In about 1983, the community of Auroville became aware that more directed steps needed to be taken to build up a truer relationship with the surrounding villages. It was decided to interrelate with them as complete neighbouring entities, and not just with the individuals who came for work or education. The Auroville Village Action Group began with this intention, and continues to maintain this important network among the communities of the Kaluvelli Tank bioregion.

Chaos caused by urbanisation

On going out to meet the villages, the presenting situation was found to be nearly as chaotic as the Aurovilian 'divine anarchy'. It took a while to understand what had happened, not only in our local villages, but in villages all over India. We discovered this as we worked to help the villagers with their clearly stated lacks: they asked for our help because they lacked money, lacked water, lacked health care, lacked education… In trying to secure the funds to assuage these lacks, we began to work with youth and women, helping them to organise themselves into Village Development Clubs. And as we worked, we learned how, since the onset of urbanisation and modernisation, the coherent social fabric of the villages (a society which had four distinct levels: teachers/advisors; leaders; tradesmen/artisans/farmers; and labourers) had been eroded by migration to the cities. The top three layers were missing, gone to the city for good jobs, better schooling for the kids, a new life, and left behind were a population bred and conditioned to take orders - not to take responsibility for the village commons. The seeds of grassroots democracy could find fertile soil here, as the people were driven by poverty to seek new ways of managing, and were already of a fairly horizontal social profile.

Auroville as 'catalysing agent'

The Auroville Village Action Group is based on the idea of Auroville acting as a "catalysing agent" - sparking in the people the wish to improve themselves, and encouraging their own dreams. Auroville, as a new city, can be seen as a conscious and young urban entity working to remain conscious and considerate of the land and population on - and with - which it is growing. There is no attempt to impose new values on the people; simply Auroville is growing, and demonstrating to the people new technologies, new methods, new ways. These are not always 'good' - but the awareness and acceptance of necessary change in the old traditional culture, which had become stagnant and ossified, is definitely good.

The outreach style of Village Action Group is based on work with village young men and women. A batch of six to fifteen young people are recruited each year as "Development Work Trainees". They remain "trainees", while earning a reasonable salary, for two years. During this time they not only gain a lot of new information (about environment, the ecological crisis, local power structure, personal and public health, etc.) but they are also engaged daily in group processes, learning how to communicate, think analytically, listen deeply, speak clearly and bravely. In the learning group, castes and outcastes are mixed and treated equally, and women and men are also treated as equals. It is through group exercises that the reasons to change from the prejudices with which they were raised become apparent to them. They are also learning participatory ways of teaching for their work as supplementary teachers in the village schools.

Sharing the enthusiasm

As their minds begin to awaken, their faces begin to shine. They are themselves developing. Then their work in the villages - helping youth clubs and women's clubs to meet, helping them organise village improvement projects, meeting local officials, teaching in the local schools - is not just explaining "development programmes" and meeting targets. They are sharing with their fellow villagers, relatives and friends, their own experience and enthusiasm for learning and developing. At one time we tried getting better educated young people from nearby Pondicherry to act as supervisory staff, but experience has shown that the local young people, although needing a longer break-in time to become responsible and show initiative, are much more stable and committed to their work. They have their roots in the place; they earn respect in the village; and they gain as much as they give. It is not just "a job" for them, it is a way of individual progress and community participation.

The work of Village Action falls into three categories:

1. The first is what was explained above, the intensive training of local youth as change agents, development workers, educational animators in their own villages.

2. The second is community organisation.

3. The third is supplementary education for the village children.

Development worker training

This training began in l993 and has been developed over the years under the guidance of a pair of dedicated Tamilian social workers, Moris and Anbu. They have personally trained and supported the growth of the youth, and worked out a detailed curriculum. The curriculum includes training with the other Auroville units involved in bioregional outreach: Health Centre, Pitchandikulam Bio-Resource Centre (particularly use of local plants as medicines), Water Harvest (water conservation, restoration of the ground water), Isai Ambalam (innovative teaching materials) and Vérité Integral Learning Centre (cultural expression). There are presently 35 development workers and trainees who work in teams of about 4-7 persons including trainees, each team looking after a "cluster" of 4-8 villages and hamlets. They work on Sundays and in the evenings, when the people are available for meetings, and take Wednesday as their day of rest.

Community organisation

Through the Development Workers the villagers are encouraged to form village "clubs" which will look at the problems in each village and take action to remedy them. Youth Clubs and Women's Clubs provide a venue for people to come together; to learn how to organise themselves; and to discuss needs (starting first with the most basic material ones, such as leveling the streets which are muddy and rutted, deepening the common well, whitewashing the school, getting the street lights fixed, etc.). They go to the government offices when they can help, and where they cannot, they draw up their own plan of action with an estimate and submit it to Village Action. The very act of planning and making an estimate is often an awakening experience.

One third of cost

The estimate has to show that the group will cover one third of the cost of the project themselves, either by raising money or by contributing labour or goods. And it has to say how it will be maintained afterwards. The whole process is an educative one for the village group - they learn how to bring a project through, and when it's finished, not only is the new facility there, but the group has increased self-confidence and is ready for the next one. Little by little the sense of community is growing.
The traditional clan leaders, and the elected leaders, are included in the process as "consultants", thereby gaining their support and leading to strengthening of a whole community feeling.

Women's empowerment

As a means of women's empowerment, this method is particularly effective. Without ever protesting, by repeatedly demonstrating that their club can do effective things for the community, many women's clubs have been recognised by the village leaders and invited to participate in meetings even over the protest of the other men, because of their effectiveness. For family issues, where the women's clubs have developed the confidence of the community, they are often asked to settle the matters which formerly the "headmen" did.

Dalit colonies

In regard to the dalit (untouchable) communities, which are located beside almost every village and are legally considered a part of the main village, Village Action treats them as independent entities. They form their own youth club, own women's club, and develop leadership skills among themselves. They attend cluster meetings on an equal par with the caste village representatives. In this way they develop their own self-confidence and self-identity.

Sometimes it is possible for the youth clubs and the women's clubs to cooperate on a project. And sometimes it becomes possible to form a "Village Council" in which the youth club and women's club are represented along with the traditional and elected leaders. Such a council meets every three months to make quarterly plans for the village. They are able to list all the needs, prioritise them, and look at sources of materials and funding, including the budget allocated to elected leaders by the government. Then they decide what to do, and where to get the funds. These decisions used to be made by the leaders, un-witnessed by the people; now it is a public decision. The clubs also keep a watch on contractors who have taken up public works, such as repairing the schools or roads, and make sure they do it properly.

Auroville also has made international contacts which are a source of funds for village development, and village assets such as overhead water tanks, borewells and handpumps, etc. have been installed in the villages, with Village Action organising the participation of the people.

Supplementary education
for village children

Besides each child's development being important as part of the future of humanity, their education is of utmost importance to the future of Auroville, as the children of the villages are the future neighbours of the township. There are several schools for village children operated by Auroville within Auroville. These are New Creation, Ilaignarkal, Arul Vazhi, Isai Ambalam and Life Education Centre.

Dismal situation

Despite the above mentioned Auroville-based schools, Village Action is also concerned with the education of a large number of children who are attending government schools in their own villages. The situation is dismal: dirty dilapidated school buildings, utter absence of educational games or materials, and teachers uninterested in teaching or children, who if they bother to come to the school at all, teach only by rote, repetition and liberal use of stick. It is possible to find in these schools children in 5th standard who cannot read and write, or multiply.

In the early days, educated youth from the villages wanted to set up "night schools" where they could coach the kids on their homework. AVAG took up the support and training of these volunteers. There are presently 35 night school operating in as many villages. But this did not seem to tackle the root of the problem - and it seemed unfair and unhealthy to ask the children who had been in school all day to come again in the evening.

Primary Education Project

That's how the idea of PEP (Primary Education Project) came up, which involves getting into the schools to improve the quality of education there. And who better to do that than the development workers who had become aware of themselves as learners, and also of the inadequacies of their own education. Intensive educational training for the development workers has created a team of eager teachers, and a much larger number of avid learners among the village children, who look forward to the two days in the week when the PEP animators come with playway methods of teaching, songs and dance, trips to the city and Auroville, smiles and love for the children.

There has been recently also an improvement in the cooperation of the government teachers. At first somewhat resistant to helping with any of the after-hours programmes of PEP, like trips or school plays, they have been inspired first of all by the consistent diplomacy of the development workers and secondly by visits to some excellent schools where new materials (being developed also in Auroville) are in use and working. They are seeing that they might actually be able to improve the educational standard using these materials, and have agreed to try them out in their schools.

Lacking fund for pre-schooling

Although the importance of pre-school education, especially for the children of working mothers, is well understood by AVAG, to date we have only three pre-schools. While the parents contribute a fee per child to the pre-school budget, the amount is negligible compared to the cost of running the schools. We consider that nutrition is an important aspect of the day-care, and that teachers and helpers (local women whom we train) should be reasonably paid. So far, we have had to put off requests coming from women's clubs to set up pre-schools in their villages, for lack of secure funding. We trust, however, that this situation will be remedied in future.