“Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.”

Auroville is a universal township in the making for a population of up to 50,000 people from around the world based near Pondicherry in south west India. With a cultural mix of over thirty nationalities, Auroville is an adventurous and interesting experiment in process for more than thirty years, striving to realize real human unity. The challenges are many and include finding new, conscious and appropriate solutions in fields of sociology and environment, energy and ecology, art, architecture and education as well as in business.

Auroville’s development is inextricably intertwined with the surrounding villages, which are classified as part of a “most backward area in need of development” by the Tamil Nadu Government. Almost 5,000 local people are employed by Auroville, from sweepers to engineers; most of them have been trained in Auroville to improve their qualifications and skills. Most important is that Auroville provides for the young of this rural area a real and viable alternative to the migration to the cities and urban centers, which is so often the only option for those seeking self improvement and employment.

• More than 500 children from neighbouring villages attend Auroville schools; another 900 are touched by Auroville classes in their village schools;
• More than 20,000 patients from the neighbouring villages receive health care from Auroville every year.
• More than 14 crores of rupees or approx. US$ 5,000,000 were given last year into the local economy.

Over the past 13 years, the Auroville village development groups have been engaged in a development program for the neighbouring villagers. With funding from a number of national and international organizations, this program aims at:

• improving the health situation through education, preventive care and treatment; empowering women;
• encouraging in each village the growth of community spirit by ensuring people’s participation in developmental programs;
• raising the standard of living of the local population through vocational training and self-employment;
• involving the villagers in a cooperative effort of wasteland reclamation, watershed management and environmental regeneration;
• providing education to the village children.