Climate Action India Project #38519

Construction to Combat Climate Change

by Auroville Language Laboratory

Project Report | Jun 25, 2024
A very busy summer!

By Mita Radhakrishnan | Project Leader and Eternal Idealist

Dear friends and supporters,

Hope all is well! A quarter has passed and so much has happened since our last report!

It's been an intense, really busy, summer!

This report is in four parts :

Update on the Building work
Update on the Staff, Projects and Admin
Update on the Lab
Update on Tomatis

Please DO look at the attachments which include :

Building - Work on the Outlet shafts has started. You can watch the preparation in this Stop Motion film!
Building - 3 Deans from an Engineering and Technology College in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu visited. You can watch what they say after their visit.
Lab - Flip through the pdf with collages of photos to see the Lab in action.
Tomatis - No photos of the kids and adults for privacy reasons, but the brochure of a major conference I attended with some photos, and the most heart-warming poem a child wrote at the end of his first block of listening training.

UPDATE ON THE BUILDING WORK

The Second Floor East Roof (mentioned in the last report) was finished! Thank you, all! This roof offers protection from rain and stops leakages. It is also transparent, letting light in, so the building remains full of light and still has lots of cross-ventilation.
This means that we have completed the West, North and East sides. Only the South is left.
What we could not do: We were not able to buy the Hobo Sensors and get our old Elitech sensors working again. Rather, we got the Elitechs working again but did not download the data yet. Data is very important to show the efficiency of our building. It makes doubters into believers. However, this is very difficult to follow on top of our daily work, and needs a person. Some other tasks have been shifted to the next quarter.
MOST IMPORTANT : Work on the Outlet Shafts and Mechanical Ventilator installation started! You will remember that our building is famous for its system of cooling without air-conditioning. Key elements are the outlet shafts, which are topped by mechanical ventilators (which don't use electricity) that let hot air out of the building, and suck in the cool air from the towers and underground tunnels. We bought two mechanical ventilators and are deeply studying all the intricate details of how to build up the shafts and fit the mechanical ventilators on top. This idea dates to 2010! We've only been able to begin its implementation now in 2024. Thanks again to all of you.
Please watch the Stop-Motion film on the various stages of preparatory work.
A team of 3 Deans from the PSNA College of Engineering and Technology in Dindigul Tamil Nadu, who had heard about our building when they were in Jaipur on a field trip, came on a study visit to our building. One was the Dean of Civil Engineering, another the Dean of Mechanical Engineering and the third a Dean of Administration and also an Energy Consultant and Certified Energy Auditor. It was an excellent visit, and you can see their reacrtions in the film attached. (In brief, they were amazed by it!).
Besides these major milestones for the building, other work continued : The Ground Floor was polished (hand't been fully done since we opened to the public in 2017), we constructed a new gate against the cows. Selvam and Kadhir have made a new garden just at the entrance. Now our ebonies and bananas are protected from the cows! The yellow laburnum that we planted back in 2017 has grown. It is in full bloom right next to the building and is absolutely gorgeous. The Waste Water system with its vortex was cleaned and it received a new coat of paint. The Karaikudi tiles work is ongoing. They are our salute to Auroville's host state, Tamil Nadu, and look gorgeous laid out.
The most important thing to note is that almost the entire world is suffering from extreme heat - the likes of which many have never experienced before in their lives - and therefore seems to have - finally - woken up to the realities of climate change. Auroville also suffered from extreme intense heat combined with humidity. BUT, in our building, we managed quite well, without any air-conditioning. People still heave a sigh of relief on entering the building from the outside; the temperature difference is palapble. And this is without our cooling system being complete.

So thank you for supporting this model building! We are proud to be a real example for the whole world!

UPDATE ON STAFF, PROJECTS AND ADMIN

STAFF

Anita from Iran joined us as our newest team member. She's in charge of social media and has started teaching a fab class on Persian culture and language. She's also the team clown making all of us laugh! Agila joined for accounting and picked up our system admirably.
Vishnu the watchdog passed away but now we have Jacky and Kutti, both abandoned Indie pups we adopted. Foxy's like a grandma next to these two!
Selvi had to take leave for a major operation and just got back. Everyone is going on staggered paid leave for a week. The entire team has worked so hard, this is the minimum we can do!

PROJECTS

Accounting Experiment: Some of you might remember supporting an accounting experiment that we started with a new accountant in 2022. This was to shift from a mixed to an accrual system, have better compliance, and find ways to do the accounting job more efficiently. We bought a program called "Suvit" which imports data from excel and does bulk exports to Tally. This has made the accountant's job much easier.
New website : Our new website is finally online. Please have a look and tell us what you think!

We have wonderful news on the Lab and Tomatis fronts, but will finish reporting on that tomorrow. Also, there has been a technical glitch and I couldn't upload all the attachments today. I will do so tomorrow.

Best wishes,

Mita

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Feb 26, 2024
Persistence, Hope, Blessings, and Beauty

By Mita Radhakrishnan | Project Leader and Eternal Idealist

Open House 24.02.24 -1

Time flies, a bit too fast. Hard to believe four months have passed already since the last report. The devil is in the details, and we have been tackling many and learning a lot in the process.

First, word about our work both at the Lab and the Tomatis Research Centre has spread. Due to the efforts of the team, the number of students at the Lab has gone up, along with the number of classes and languages offered. We continue to get people at Tomatis only through word of mouth. Practitioners working with special needs kids in different places in India now refer families to us. A lot of initial consultations happen by Zoom (we have a free 40-minute account which works perfectly well) these days, besides in-person ones. We remain committed to doing the method as it should be done, without any compromises and shortcuts. We’ve had beautiful results for the majority of the kids, and all the adults who have done the program. We definitely need help to document these stories in detail… and to convert those sheaths of handwritten consultation notes into another book, perhaps. It is a blessing to be able to do this work and to assist in daily subtle miracles.

Second, the book (Resonance English edition). It’s available now as both a paperback and a Kindle e-pub all over the world and within India on Kindle. We haven’t managed to solve the printing conundrum of Amazon not offering its Print on Demand service in India. Our wish to print on sustainable FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) paper has led us to the printer who prints for both Oxford University Press UK and OUP India. We are in talks with them to get estimates. The English edition of Resonance is truly a remarkable book; we are proud of this work and will continue to pursue perfection in the print edition. Thanks to the authors for sending us 10 print copies they ordered from Amazon in Germany! You may see 2.5 chapters of the book free, and order the book from books.aurovillelanguagelab.org. Please do order it and consider rating it and reviewing it on Amazon. (It has received several 5-star reviews so far). We’ve decided to do a proper international book launch and invite you all to be part of it. If you're interested, email "mita@aurovillelanguagelab.org" with “Book Launch” in the subject line.

Third, the building. (The main project on GlobalGiving). According to Mother and Sri Aurobindo, all material things are expressions of the Divine, and must be treated with respect, care, and a sense of sacredness. It is so for our building. We take great care to maintain the building, even as we are completing it slowly and steadily.

The second-floor southern side windows mentioned in the last report have been finished impeccably by New Dawn Carpentry, Auroville. These are part of the cooling system. Work started on the East Roof overhang, and all the material has been ordered. A cycle shed was also made. The conceptual work for the cafeteria space is almost done. It will be wonderful when the cafeteria will be functional, though that is many months (and funds) down the line. The Tomatis Children’s room got SS mosquito nets since mosquitoes became a menace post-monsoon. We have made other necessary purchases, including a pump and further safety equipment, especially for the welding work.

The Karaikudi tiles experiment to make tiles in the Karaikudi style of Tamil Nadu to close the gaps between the flooring of the rooms and the new limestone flooring in the corridor that was put in earlier this year has been very successful. You will see it in the photos. Tapas worked with the workers on many minute and intricate details, which was a fascinating learning experience for all. If you would like to know more, do ask….

We are thinking of buying Hobo Sensors (which we had borrowed from the CSR – Centre for Scientific Research, Auroville - for the Transsolar Project evaluating the building some years ago) to measure relative humidity, temperature, and maybe light, in addition to the Elitech sensors mentioned in the last report. We hope a volunteer engineer might come in just once a week to take the measurements and analyze the data. She may also work on updating our computer infrastructure database.

With a woman civil engineer from the PVAC (Pondicherry Viluppuram Auroville Cuddalore) bioregional group, we hope to make detailed estimates in March to have more specific financial targets.

More and more people are making remarks about the beauty of the building and its peaceful atmosphere, and as temperatures start to rise, many are commenting on the significant difference in temperature inside the building compared to the outside. People are surprised that we aren’t using the fans yet. The significance of an institutional building running without air-conditioning, and the direct impact this has on reduced energy usage is enormous. The Auroville Architects Service brought a group of 32 young architects from a university in Gujarat on a study visit to our building. It was wonderful interacting with them.

Fourth: New Programs and Staff additions.

We started evening conversation practice sessions in multiple languages which are spaces of exchange. The one in Chinese segued into a beautiful celebration of Chinese New Year. Please see our Instagram posts! Seeing the Lab developing as a place of cultural exchange and understanding is lovely!

We had an excellent Open House on 24.02.24. Photos are attached.

We are also happy to share that three new women have joined the team, one an Aurovilian from Tamil Nadu, and two from Iran. Each one brings specific skills. We’ll introduce them better in the following report and will share photos of all these recent programs and events.

We thank you once again for your precious support.

Please do write to us if you would like any details, and we welcome your comments and feedback.

Warmly,

Mita,
On behalf of the Auroville Language Laboratory and Tomatis Centre team.

Auroville Language Lab,
International Zone, Auroville, Tamil Nadu - 605101. India
Mobile : +919443631861

Open House 24.02.24 - 2

Open House 24.02.24 - 3

Open House 24.02.24 - 4

Open House 24.02.24 - 5

Links:

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Oct 30, 2023
Our Book is out! And a testimonial...

By Mita Radhakrishnan | Project Leader and Eternal Idealist

Some building work photos

We have great news! Our book is out! This book is the Englsh translation of a fantastic book about Systemic Listening Therapy by our German friends and colleagues Dirk Beckedorf and Franz Muller. We are proud to say that Auroville Language Lab is the publisher. This is the first full-length book we have published, and the first of many, we hope. The book gives a detailed explanation about how the method works, and analyzes it in light of modern theories in the different disciplines connected to Tomatis. There are very detailed case studies which would appeal to parents, educators, doctors, etc, as well as detailed explanation of the different constituents of the Electronic Ear and the Listening Profile. It's a great introduction of this marvelous method to the scientific world, at the same time that it offers hope to parents.

The book is available on Amazon both in India and abroad as an e-book for now. Outside India, it will be available as a paperback by mid-week next week.

We are really excited to present this book to you. Please do buy it and share the link with friends and those who could benefit. And please do rate it on Amazon and leave us reviews!

Outside India https://a.co/d/3is74VP

Inside India https://amzn.eu/d/gLAOOpv

Amazon does not offer Kindly Print on Demand in India, unfortunately. We are looking at different options of printing it.

We'll have a book launch soon and will invite you all!

We also have another testimonial to share. This film has been made entirely in-house, It is a bit long, at 15 minutes, but it showcases one mother and the story of her child, who suffered from West Syndrome, a rare disease, and developmental delays as a result,. The mother talks about how Tomatis transformed her child.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9XKlo_7Pw4

We have had some pretty remarkable transformational stories of other children, but haven't yet documented them in videos.

One of our weaknesses is that we don't have any stories of the adults we work with, and we'll try to do this in the last quarter.

Besides all this, we have done work in Malayalam, creating many recordings with the help of volunteers, and we have also done recordings in Hindi. We're in the process of adding the LISTem protocol to our Tomatis repertoire... it's still early stages with that at the moment. It is a very interesting measure of listening especially in the absence of Listening Tests.

The Lab is also doing very well, with lots of students in different languages, and great work by volunteers.

As for the building, which is the base of all this work, we have revived our Elitech sensors for temperature and relative humidity which we had bought and worked with some years ago in 2019 or so. We will start the data collection soon. It's a great feeling to finally have a proper floor upstairs at Tomatis. It's also great to hav6051e finished the First floor to the Second Floor staircase. Roof repairs go on every now and then. Research towards materials and possible costs of the remaining inlet and all the outlet shafts is ongoing. We have taken a loan and started work on the windows on the second floor, which are a crucial part of the system of cooling without AC. The Northern side had been done some years ago, and now the southern side is being done as we write. We have also been finishing the tops of the inlet shafts upstairs.

This year has seen terribly alarming temperatures around the world, with several parts of the US and Europe reaching unheard-of temperatures. In such situations, we humbly believe our building can offer an example of how to build. We need to spread information the world over that more sustainable buildings are very much possible and there are healthier, more sustainable alternatives to air-conditioning. Our building is one of them.

Warmly,

Mita,
On behalf of the Auroville Language Laboratory and Tomatis Centre team.
Auroville Language Lab
International Zone,
Auroville, Tamil Nadu - 605101. India
Mobile : +919443631861

Links:

From Resonance to Bonding

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