 Welcome to a new project camp video. So today we are in India to visit Aravill, which might just be one of the largest communities in the world So Aravill is based in the south of India near a town called Pondicherry and this community is big like really big 1360 hectares, which is about two and a half thousand football fields Over 3,000 people live here and many nationalities from around the world Mostly Indian followed by German French Italian and a long list of others Yeah, many different nationalities because the goal is to have a place where men and women from all countries around the world Can live in peace and harmony together a place to realize human unity Which sounds impressive. We started by a French woman and Indian man in the 60s and nowadays is still running apparently They also don't use any money. I've seen and heard a lot about this place. So I'm very curious to check it out So let's have a look Alright, so we arrived on a big parking space with uber tuk-tuk and many buses This feels a bit like entering an amusement park selfies everywhere souvenirs everywhere lots of it Some are made in Aravill and some are just And if you're lucky you can get to see their golden ball or get a ball of ice cream. There are many tourists here It's it's kind of boring and even though this science house. It's not a tourist destination It definitely feels like that Honestly, this is not what I expected at all very commercial Shops everywhere selling things and even banks to get money But the impressive thing about our of us that it's big like really big let me show you on the map I mean they even have a map See within this community. There are many little sub communities So the touristic part is just one tiny element and this map might look like random chaos That's my fault because the city is actually very well-planned. See inside Aravill. There are four main areas The residential zone focused on making a nice living place This is the largest area the cultural zone here You find things like research art sports the industrial zone and this is where things are made and manufactured and the International zone and people living here are grouped by the continent where they're from sort of their small version of the planet And around these four areas is the green belt a 400 hectares area around the city for organic farms or charts forest and wildlife areas And finally in the middle. There's the peace area a point where the whole community is built around with this building as the key center point the matrimander This structure is seen as the spiritual center of the community a place for meditation It's really an impressive piece of architecture to witness and you can see it somewhere being built in the background of many old pictures Because it took 37 years to complete. So many old members have contributed in some way to build it It's very big if you compare it with the size of a human Really an impressive piece of artwork And the inside looks rather surprising. It's a lot like a 60 star trek setting in there all white But it's not allowed to take pictures in here. So here are some images from the good old tourist center Here there's even a 3d model But overall spirituality is a big central element doing inner work Now there's another big community center point here Which is food and there are many places to eat or our kitchens within our will itself But the biggest one is the solar kitchen where every day a thousand people eat So it's in this building and we're gonna have some lunch So here you can see what's from our will a D is from our will And the plan cut is made here So welcome to the solar kitchen, my name is Laura I live here I'm a newcomer. So this kitchen solar kitchen is a collective kitchen where all the inhabitants can come and eat It's a veg kitchen vegetarian kitchen where people can come and eat from Monday to Saturday And it's based on solar energy and there's also a diesel backup in case there is no sun Yeah So here we've got sesame for the protein some pickles Which is very Indian with chili and all Some jaggery there When I don't eat at solar kitchens sometimes I come here to food link. So they have fruits vegetables here Coming from the farms of our villainy and here. There's some nuts Jam pickles peanut butter From our oh from our villain. Oh, there's only products of our will here Papaya green papaya So that's my our card Okay, so time to explain this money thing. See there's still money floating around everywhere But this is mostly used by people for the outside and short-time visitors For people that will stay longer. They can use this our card You can use it to buy basic things like food soap toothpaste And you get credit on it by putting money on it because young members have to pay to be here So in a way that method is still very similar to normal money So the money part does get a bit more interesting for old members and business owners because there are many little different Businesses in our of ill from making soap to carpentry Having a spirulina farm owning a gas house and they all generate income and they have an interesting way How to structure that so we're going to visit Arayali who's making eco bricks. So let's have a look at his factory My name is Mohan. I'm an auto-villain I started this company called Arayali. I joined Arayali in 2008 And I started this unit to produce earth block This is the size the standard size of the bricks. We are regularly producing and people are very much interested In this break. It's a solid break which has been produced with 5% cement 15% sand and 20% 80% red soil This is the manual press. We have been using for more than 10 years People are very much interested to do use this brick now So we are not able to supply bricks to them so then we bought this machine and it helps us to produce More quantity of blocks in a day and then we are trying to meet the demand and by that way we are helping people to Construct houses with these bricks How many bricks do you make a day in this machine? We can even produce 2,000 bricks in a day So and how does it work now because you run a business, but your profit is it for you? Is it for Arayali? Where does it go? It's an Arayali unit and one-third of the profit should go to Arayali Arayali developments Two-third stays again for Arayali, for units development And all the Arayali's are paid maintenance So is it also that you would get the same as the people working here or no? Is it different because some of the people are getting more than me because Because they are physically working there for example, mesons are getting about 800 rupees per day So an Arayali student get more than 20,000 rupees per month So if you're comparing with the salary with me It's 15 to 20,000 rupees. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll get out of the sun now because it's getting warm for you Thank you So basically all the money earned with these little businesses like a restaurant goes to development of Aravill So it doesn't go to the individual Aravillian But it's spread out between the community and everyone gets paid they say in maintenance So you get food, housing and some credit on your Arakart to buy your own things It's kind of a big difference compared to how the rest of the world works And one of the things I just cannot not see when walking around here is all this waste on the streets So they dump it like next to the road and this is quite a problem in India in general But also in Aravill so all the trash is being dumped burned and it just creates a mess And but luckily there are also some people in Aravill that really tried to do something with all of this waste So let's have a visit to the Eco Center. Hi, I am Parani. I will take you round for the eco-scivist to show what we are doing in the eco service So here all the waste from Aravill is coming in. Yeah, this is a waste coming from Aravill So we have a 360 pickup point all Aravill This one of the truck we have a two truck this one of the truck We pick up all the waste with this the waste is coming here This is a all kind of waste like a plastic paper mixed waste all is here So one of the back from there it goes here? Yeah, yeah When when the community was segregating like a six category which come here The Amma will segregate here 83 category. So the 83 category It will split it like you know how we need it and how to send it to recycling plant So what are a few categories you have? We have here the metal aluminum Newspaper plastic waterproof that white paper and KD Different aluminum I have to say also all the 83 category but not 83 here When the Amma set out, it's all come here. You can see here the tetra pack and dog food here We have all the glass This is oil container. It's come from solar kitchen tear form Crushed tear form was over here This is a PVC plastic Which is a non-recyclable. So one of the option which we are trying with the tear form How to use it because the plastic it take like 600 years tear from its old life will be staying So we don't know what to do So we making out of that plastic and the thermocol tear form out of the bricks here And also you can see that over the roof They also we using Cooling When you go in you can see how cool inside That's that's that from here When you feel that you can feel that and this is for the community members, but this is when the children come I have to give a class How to do what to do Why we need to do to help them to sort out their waste yes like a tool for them to Yeah, at least if I show this one They will understand what what really we are doing And would you say the trash that you see around Aroville on the streets or a bit close to the road? It comes from from visitors of the villages is from that not to villagers and visitors Mostly they put visitors that so much tourists one day like you know 3,000 to 13,000 People coming per day So minimum like half season I can say like in the heart season 3,000 but now that the busy season now 13,000 The one of the most impressive things about Aroville might just be all the land that they regenerate it because when the people came here in the 60s this whole part of India basically was just dry rocky sand Like it's basically looked like a desert nothing was growing there and throughout the years They planted over a millions of trees and now it has this rich green forest which is full of insects plants and trees So a much more lively Ecosystem, so let's have a look at one of those communities that is still living in the forests and huts taking care of all these trees So I was just going to edit the video and I realized there's no audio underneath this entire interview And why are you not focused? Man, I don't know what happened. I really need better gear But sorry shake was nice, but for now, I'll just do the interview with a voiceover So this is shake a super cool guy He's originally from India done work that Instagram and Asana in San Francisco as a software developer Now here to live community life and he was showing us around explaining all the details of their work addressing the importance of forests and trees in our life and how they can transform a desert area into a rich ecosystem and This is actually a massive and super important topic for the future of mankind So we'll cover it later in the project come video in depth, but one of their main achievements here is retaining water It's like their gold. It's life for the land and so because they managed to do this They actually now have a little lake to swim Where are you from? So because this was a desert area waters are scarce So that's why they have dry compost toilets, but they also have developed funny tools to be a bit more conscious about the water use So let's say you want to wash your hands Instead of having one big cup You put it in this cup with a little hole So the water comes out in a bit slower pace, but it's still pretty good to wash your hands So it's a small clever tool to use less water And finally we're gonna meet Jürgen an old member who's been here since the early days He actually helped planting a lot of these trees, but that's not what I want to talk with him about I'm kind of curious to just hear him out. What's it like to live over 40 years in Araville here is perspective So we're gonna meet him at his house, which he actually built himself This is on rat. This is okay Yeah, my name is Jürgen. I'm originally from Germany go up in Cologne and I came to India in 1973 Together with a friend Coming to all we was that we had written to the mother of the orb in Russia 72 and ask her whether we could join the orbit experiment and then she wrote back to us that this was fine and Whenever we are ready, we should come Then we came the next year and We flew from Amsterdam to Delhi and then we were Going to take a train to Pondicherry but When we arrived at the airport in Delhi then all our money was confiscated Indian money that we had changed in Amsterdam and we had all the receipts everything and we thought it was totally legal But it was not So they took away all our money and then we went out of the airport with nothing no PISA No whooping No, you're on a thing Mostly people who come to over there come because they feel some kind of inner call Some people come here by what you call accident and some people they They are they have been here, but they really don't they haven't even understood what all is even after 10 years so Then you have some people who are very devoted Then you have some people who are more into let's say Research of what spirituality in the Indian context really means Of a tree or window and the mother are part of but not the central idea then the other people who feel that That everything around all has to center to the bin or my own window and the mother but I Don't think that even open door the mother would have envisaged this kind of attitude. I would say and all the At the beginning plans were being made Master plans and all kinds of things of how this area should be developed in order to be a model city That didn't really work out either It's when you look at the surface and when you look at the development that has taken place It really has hardly anything to do with this master plans that have been made at one time With the exception of the matrimonial which always wanted should have been the center of all which it is geographically but It's a personal it's a personal thing for some people its personal development the matrimonial is very central and for other people it doesn't really make any difference because Spirituality is something that you develop within yourself and it is something totally beyond anything material You can't build a temple or anything and believe that this is going to help your spiritual advance you You follow something completely different and you also have to be open for New and different developments in the sphere of spirituality Because it's a it's a never-ending process of of growth and Yeah, do you have anything else you want to say to YouTube world? We wish everybody the very best Yeah All right, so the conclusion so I would say the size of this project is just impressive so many people so much infrastructure School dentists hospitals. They have it all they even figuring out their own currency Which I think it's impressive to do at this large scale can learn a lot from that I'm kind of surprised about the sustainability of the project I mean you have some solar panels bio digesters as some food is being grown but not that much But I would also say it's not really their main purpose of existing because they're more focused on the inner self So I spoke into many people here about the future of Aravill and they seem pretty divided some people still stick to the old plan that was made in the 60s and some think it needs to change and That gives a lot of freedom for people to interpret it in their own way But it's also lacking a little bit of leadership like no one really knows where the project is going and on the one And it's nice, but sometimes it also seems like people are a bit lost on what to do So I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing But it's just an observation and then you have the bittersweet part of tourism on the one hand is nice because it brings a lot of new People to Aravill they get to know the culture they buy local products So it helps to support the local economy But it also adds this weird commercial layer where people come here to consume the place and you see Properties going up in price in this region because hotels are being built and set up So personally not a big fan of that commercial layer into the project Now all the people gonna be upset in YouTube You should make money, bro But I would say overall impressive that this place exists and it's already been existing for 50 years Imagine back then that people came here in the middle of India in this desert place to set up this new society So respect for everyone that actually had the courage to do that Overall, I would say a lot of things learned from it probably also a lot of mistakes being made But I got a lot of new knowledge for Project Kamp which I need to digest So thanks for watching and see you in the next Project Kamp video