Now this beautiful year in which I had the opportunity to be in India, in Auroville and a part of Thamarai, is almost over. I came last August with 9 other people from Germany to volunteer in different Auroville units. We are here with a German youth exchange program, “weltwaerts”, that gets supported by the German government and is completely uncommercial. Through this, I became a part of this beautiful project.
Back in Germany, I was already into social work and had quite a few experiences with it; different internships, small jobs as well as volunteer work in this sector.
Being in India, I got to know a completely different world, from money to the moon, everything in its way completely different but then also still the same. The social work here, for me as a facilitator, is completely different than I am used to in Germany. Somehow, I was not completely expecting it, I tried not to expect too much before coming here – but it makes sense, since I grew up in such a different way than our students or even my colleagues. The school system can have big classes. At first, I needed to find my place, but also get used to the differences I was not so aware of. Sometimes it seemed chaotic, wild and loud to me, and might it be like that or just different from the way I know? Now, I can say I can stand in the class way more confident and know how to talk and/or behave to support the children to be calm and have fun while learning and doing homework.
In this year I was able to learn a lot, not only about India, a completely different world, culture, way of living or this little utopia called Auroville. Through Thamarai I had the opportunity to try out a lot of things and was able to learn a lot. For example, through workshops like ATB (Awareness Through the Body) or our meditation class, also as part of the wellbeing program, a lot about natural healing and different, alternative healing methods.
I am grateful to be here. I am grateful to be a part of Thamarai with its people from whom I got so much support all through the year. I’m sure this is not the last time we see each other. I will take a lot of new knowledge with me, games and methods that I can also integrate into my work in Germany. I am planning to study social work in the future after exploring the world a little bit more.
In gratitude
Viviana