Empowering Women & Girls in Auroville & Bioregion

Dear friends,

The work that happened (and did not happen due to Covid-19), is best described in the words of the Volunteer whom we took on precisely to work on the GG Women's Tomatis English Training Project.  Do have a look at her report attached.

We're still in lockdown.  Let's see what happens in the next few weeks.  We're hoping the lockdown will be lifted from June 01st.  Of course, we can't go back to how things were before, and masks, social distancing, washing hands, sanitizing frequently touched furniture, etc, will all be part of the protocol when we re-start both at the Lab and at Tomatis. There is an opportunity to take the project forward post-Covid that has appeared in collaboration with another Auroville organization, working with village women north of Auroville.  We'll let you know if and as and when that develops.

Meanwhile, please have a look at what young Pratyusha had to say about her work on the project and her experience.  Attaching her report as well as the recommendation we did for her.  PLEASE OPEN THESE ATTACHMENTS.

Hope all of you are staying safe and healthy, and that none of you have experienced any losses in your families due to Covid-19.  Auroville has, thankfully, remained Covid-free throughout this period.

Lots and lots of love from Auroville,

Mita

PS: I just opened an Instagram account.  I'll share photos and videos about the building, Tomatis, the Lab, as well as general reflections and insights, team photos, updates, things I am learning, raw vegan recipes I am experimenting with, etc.  In case you are on Instagram, please follow me: https://www.instagram.com/mitaralltomatis/

• Pratyusha's Report for GG (PDF)
  
• Recommendation_for_Pratyusha_.pdf (PDF)
  

Hi everyone!

Remember our last project report?

https://www.GlobalGiving.org/projects/empowering-women-and-girls-in-auroville-and-bioregion/reports/?subid=137282

So, we did the first batch of the women's Tomatis group English training last year.  But after that, we were inundated with our ongoing work, and the building as well, that we honestly could not take the Women's project forward after the first batch.

In our previous report, we mentioned this was due to the fact that all of us are multi-tasking like crazy, and we also lack one dedicated person (woman) committed exclusively to the project as a whole.    We did think that as soon as one member of our team, would get back after her maternity leave (which extended to a year!), she could dedicate herself to the project. But that was an impractical idea.  Because she brings her little one-year-old, to the office with her.  So while our team has unexpectedly expanded now with this tiny being, who keeps us all smiling and happy, it also means that she can only work half-time, taking care of the regular ongoing programs, but won't be able to do the running around required by the GG Women's project.

And as of today, our prayers are answered!  We are getting an Indian-origin volunteer, a recent graduate from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor in Social Science, specialization in International Development, who is looking to pursue a Bachelor of Education and become a language teacher!  She plans to come in Feb and will stay here until May.

She finds the whole Tomatis approach really interesting, as also our GlobalGiving women's project.  She is totally on board to take this project as her responsibility and to work with our team brainstorming, planning, seeing how we need to adjust the requirements of the program with the constraints women are facing in their time schedules (without compromising the program of course).  She would need to go around informing the Auroville units/NGOs that work with village women and girls about it, to go out to the schools to reach out to the schoolteachers and the girls, etc. So that we can try and meet some of the goals we dreamt about when we launched the project!  She will also take care of the regular English lessons for these women and can do specific work with each woman during the Tomatis Active Phase exercises. She’ll also teach a regular non-Tomatis English class, which will be great, so we can observe the differences more closely.

So this is fantastic news; can't wait, and will write next end Feb or Beginning March once she has arrived and we have made our plan of action.

Meanwhile, if any of you wouldn't mind going back and reading our original project proposal, for which you made your donation, and give us some fresh outside perspective, make some comments, ask some questions, that would be wonderful and would really help.

Love, and looking forward to hearing from at least some of you!

Mita