youthlink - Tumblr blog

[youthlink]

Youth Day Celebration!!

On Sunday November 2022, YouthLink and Youth Center hosted an event to celebrate Children's Day. Over 150 children attended the event, which centered around a treasure hunt in the forest.

The adventure began with the children meeting the forest spirit, who asked for their help in saving the forest by planting a special tree. The children had to find the tree first, so they were given their first clue by an old man they met along the way. The next challenge involved catching the tail of a goblin to obtain the next clue.

To continue their quest, the children had to navigate through an obstacle course called "The Floor is Lava." Once they completed the course, they had to answer some riddles to get another clue. Finally, they entered the "Spider Maze" to find the plant that they had to plant with the tree spirit to complete their mission.

At the end of the treasure hunt, each child was rewarded with a little package containing sweets, toys, and stickers. The event was a huge success, and the children had a wonderful time participating in the various challenges and activities.

Overall, the event organized by YouthLink and the Youth Center was a great way to celebrate Children's Day while providing a fun and engaging experience for the children who attended.

We can't wait to do it again in 2023!!

[youthlink]

What is YouthLink?!

YouthLink connects people. Human unity means in a very basic sense: one individual connecting to another individual. Youth from a certain age and especially young adults have a natural inclination to go into the world and meet new people, make new friends and learn from others. It is often this age where lifelong friendships get established. And you need occasions where you can meet new people. YouthLink is providing these occasions on many levels. 

We organised a big Treasure Hunt for more than 170 children from Auroville and the surrounding villages. We set up gatherings for all Auroville volunteers from around the world, Karaoke evenings, specific language classes to learn about other cultures (Tamil and French). We engage to make Auroville more safe by doing research and awareness campaigns about sexual harassment, about road safety, about first aid and first responders, about sustainable mobility. We bring people together across generations on Blind Babble Dates (an interaction game we invented) or with our Tech Elves service, where young people support older people to set up their smartphone or computer. 

And we are a self organised team of young adults who cooperate to set up all these events, plan them, develop posters and announcements, get people involved, do the logistics and facilitate. At the same time we strive to establish  a non-profit unit compliant with rules and regulations, do correct accounting and administration, doing yearly and quarterly plans and follow them up. And managing a fast changing team, where we have to decide which volunteers to take, how to integrate them in the team and get them productive in a few weeks before they will leave again. And we change coordinator roles, try new decision structures, look for new learning challenges. How many responsibilities do I want to take on, how many necessary activities can I do and still keep up my motivation? How committed for how long can I be and how to balance it with having fun at work? How to deal with inner and outer conflicts? Where are my leadership talents and what are my weaknesses to cope with? 

So far we are doing great. Our team is growing, the number of monthly events is increasing, team members and volunteers are enjoying working together, more volunteers want to work with us and more organisations want to cooperate. And since we are a non-profit organisation we need your help!