Communities in alphabetic order

Transformation

Housing & Communities

More details :

Transformation is a residential settlement in the Cultural Zone.
The gardens are taken care of by a common gardener, which makes them look a bit like a public garden with arrangements of flowers here and there. The people living here enjoy the quietness and peace of the place, although Transition school is just besides it.

Two banyans

Housing & Communities

More details :

The community was started as a small farm in 1973. It is located in Auroville's GreenBelt area and the Aurovilians who live there want to be left in peace to lead their pioneering lifestyle.

Vérité

Housing & Communities

Guesthouses :

Vérité is a longstanding intentional community and guest house located in a quiet, forested environment near the Matrimandir and Kottakarai village. It offers a variety of garden accommodations for fourteen guests from capsule huts to one fully self-contained unit. Prices range from Rs 260 - Rs 825 per day which includes three delicious vegetarian meals and laundry services. Along with individual guests, groups of college students stay annually for work-study programmes.

More details about Vérité

There are two halls where meditation is practiced, and which accommodate workshops and courses in a variety of activities for Aurovilians, guests and villagers. These halls are also available for individual yoga practice, and guest-led spontaneous courses. There is a library-reading room relevant to spiritual and healing studies, and a guest lounge for informal socialising. The community lifestyle is conducive to an individual's process of contemplation and inner growth.

Vérité models sustainable living practices, which include renewable energy systems (solar for electricity, biogas and solar for cooking, and windmill for water pumping), appropriate technologies (compressed earth blocks and ferrocement for building, biological wastewater treatment, and rainwater catchment) and growing organic food in the garden and orchard. This means for guests a living experience of the benefits and limitations of sustainable living.

>>  The Circle experiment in Vérité  |  Integral Learning Centre

Vikas

Housing & Communities

More details :

In one way or another, Vikas has always emphasised collective life. Guests have often felt like a part of the community, especially when there was a majority of French speaking residents, but this has changed now. There are more families and a spirit of life despite the fact that people do not rely on the community support that once existed (community kitchen, meetings, etc.).

Vikas is a very beautiful place and has for the past many years been open without a fence of any kind. It is located in the heart of the future Residential Zone and has a very earthy style of architecture. The people are humble, friendly and interested in simplicity. Most of the community is solar powered, and there is of course a noisy windmill that sometimes breaks down. The community has a heritage of the country feeling of the south of France, but this is just the writer's personal feeling. There have been many experiments in building vegetable gardens, and we have had some quite radical people pass by, but the long-standing residents are idealistic and serve the collectivity of Auroville by and large.

Vikas combines the pioneering spirit of the early days and that special atmosphere of campfire solidarity along with the new trend in Auroville towards experiments in family life. One last thing: people here may not always seem extrovertly happy or optimistic, but there is little question about the sincerity of our inner work here. People in Auroville often have given themselves over to their inner quest, to such an extent that we have no right to judge them by the outward looking eye.

Youth Camp

Housing & Communities

More details :

The Youth Camp in Fraternity is a place especially created to enable young people (by age or spirit) to come and be together and experience the Auroville Dream. We are surrounded by young Aurovilians, and are adjacent to the New Creation sports ground where a lot of action takes place.
We have a lot of pets, including dogs, cats. They are all friendly! Some of us are into serious wildlife work, with for example the snakes and birds of this area.
We are open to help young people or groups to come and explore Auroville. There have been several youth camps which we have organised for a week or ten days, where the idea is to expose the participants to the various activities that are going on here in Auroville. For this we need of course be contacted well in advance for all the necessary arrangements. We can organise such Camps for maximum 15 people at a time.