The youth in Auroville recently got around to rediscovering the simple, yet profound, act of giving and receiving gifts as they celebrated International Youth Day with a line of events.
The Youth Link team in Auroville which initiated the celebration of the second edition of the International Youth Day at the Unity Pavilion chose to explore the U.N. theme, ‘The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Production and Consumption’ through some of Auroville's core values.
‘Youth Link’ is a youth-led service to help youth empowerment in Auroville and its bioregion, that launched its vision on Youth Day 2015 in Auroville with a large event that got on the U.N. map.
And for the second successive year, Youth Link was on the United Nations map of global events.
“By learning to give, and learning to receive, they believe that the community can shift its culture positively,” an organiser said.
The events were launched by Mohan V. Chunkath, Secretary of the Auroville Foundation and Aster Patel, member of the Governing board of Auroville.
As part of the events, Youth Link put up a stall with the motto “Bring a gift and get a gift!” where any one could leave a gift on the table, and in return they will get a special Auroville product. To stay in line with the theme, gifts were encouraged to be sustainable products.
The event rolled out with an exhibition of art by young artists. A Youth Link team also gave a progress presentation, to keep the community up to date regarding its projects, workshops and performances. Some of the presentations included work on developing apprenticeship/exchange programmes, and talks on Bioregional Youth Projects. The work of the youth in Auroville and in the bio-region was highlighted.
