Life Education Centre

The Life Education Centre was founded in 1991 as part of Village Action Group. It is a place where young school drop-outs from neighbouring villages, aged 15 to 22, can receive life-oriented education. The main aim of the centre is to train young women in skills and develop their social behaviour and self-confidence in women's issues, health care and community awareness. As the students grow in self confidence and become psychologically stronger, the teamwork of the group improves, trust builds up, and thus they can influence the village communities. For this a certain adjustment is necessary, and we need to spend time with the youngsters as they all have different situations and abilities.

The Life Education Centre has been lovingly nurtured and sustained by Zerina, a friend and dedicated social worker from Pondicherry. She is presently assisted by Karin, a German Aurovilian, who is fundraising and running the Lively boutique and production unit for the support of the Centre.

High drop-out rate

The number of these drop-outs in India is incredibly high: 30% of all the children who start school never complete primary school. And nearly 80% never complete their education.

Why is this so?

On one hand the very poor parents aren't able to support their children. Being illiterate themselves they are hardly able to help them with their homework. And furthermore, being dependent on each rupee, they don't appreciate education in general and aren't ready to support and encourage their children to get any skills; rather they are forced to send them out to work to earn a salary.

Besides that, there's the existing rigid educational system. Many teachers are totally unmotivated, using blind repetition as a teaching method. There is also a lot of pressure on children of non-caste families. There is no encouragement to develop their self-esteem or love of others and nature, so they create children who become so-called failures

Still this is not all. Even if a poor rural child is lucky enough to pass entirely through the normal course of schooling, it will not have provided him with skills necessary for surviving in a rural community, thus youngsters prefer to leave their village for urban employment - adding to the urban overcrowding, the disappearance of rural artisans and the impoverishment of the rural economy.

New chance

In Auroville's Life Education Centre they get a new chance. They are trained for about two years in basic skills like writing and reading Tamil, in mathematics, English, typewriting and some basic computer-skills. They also learn tailoring and needlework in order to become independent and able to earn money on their own in their villages. On occasions there are also workshops on theatre, art, child psychology and so on.

New family

The coordinator accompanies the girls during their whole process, and assists them like a mother. Carefully and with love she encourages them and teaches them to be aware of their rights and how to defend their position. Once a week they talk about the situation of women in India and also about their own family situations. The girls support each other like within a family, and obviously they have in L.E.C. a second home where they can grow and develop according to their own nature.

It is not only a professionally given education that makes a human grow and face bravely the world, but life itself, all the surroundings and relationships. There is an aphorism of Mother which fits here quite well:

"Let all circumstances, all happenings
in life be occasions, constantly renewed,
for learning more and ever more."

Mediating between generations

On the other hand there is the traditional Indian society with its generally positive and supportive structure, but also with negative restrictions and limitations. It happens quite often that parents don't want their daughter to go to L.E.C. They fear that she could become too independent-minded and free, and afterwards break the traditional rules and roles.

In these cases the coordinator has to be a mediator between the old and the young generation, between tradition and the seeking of a new life. She visits the parents and very sensitively and carefully gains the confidence of the families and convinces them of the advantages of obtaining education and professional skills. Once again we can see how far the seeds of one little project may spread.

Grown in consciousness

After their two years training, some of the girls get a job or buy their own sewing-machine to take tailoring orders from their neighbours. But even when they return back to their traditional life, they have learned so much. They have become conscious of their situation, they have reflected on gender issues, and they know much more about the power of a women's group. They will share their attitudes and perceptions with their relatives, and will pass them on to their daughters and sons. In fact, after these discussions they are able to handle all their problems in a better way.

Presently we have 38 students. A policy has been introduced whereby the students get a monthly stipend. Offering this was a success, both for solving tensions at home and giving the students an extra motivation for finishing their studies.

We're happy to be instrumental in helping these girls, enabling them to know self-esteem and happiness, and to contribute to their families and to their wider society in a constructive manner.