Tamil
The Tamil-speaking population worldwide is approximately 90.2 million people. Extensive work has been done to translate materials into Tamil and used in fishing communities in Nagapattinam and in Auroville and the surrounding bioregion since 2016. Using transformational tools and templates, empowered community members articulated their own priorities, changed disempowering, exclusionary cultural norms, worked with government officials to reclaim land, and many other breakthrough initiatives. We hold annual learning in action programs for youth, service staff and children and are training a new generation of practitioner coaches to scale the work in Tamil Nadu.
Radical Transformational Leadership Here and Now 2026
This programme is conducted in English, Hindi and Tamil
A learning-in-action program with Sanjeev Ranganathan, Srilatha Juvva and Sudarshan Rodriguez along with Dr. Monica Sharma to enable participants to design and implement breakthrough initiatives, expand their reach and generate significant transformative change. Humanity Intelligence Capabilities will be enhanced through project -based learning. The program will be delivered in English with some Tamil and Hindi translation. Open to all change-makers wanting to generate equitable and sustainable results for well-being.
Becoming and Being a Shifu programme
Becoming and Being a Shifu programme – C3STREAM Land Designs is a commercial unit of Auroville working on Embedded Systems Programming and Chip Design. Many youth seeking high-end employment in a rural setting apply for a job. However, the skills needed for these were lacking and so was their direction and motivation in life.
C3STREAM Land Designs along with its sister organization STEM Land created a Becoming and Being a Shifu program, a one year residential program that worked on not just skills, but also competencies and inner capacities. The skills offered were in software, chip design and STEM education. Competencies and inner capacities were worked on through RTL and Vipassana. Every Shifuian went through an RTL program in Tamil and later as their English improved an RTL program in English with the team to support working inside-out and supporting the culture of responsibility, equality and courage to create at C3STREAM Land Designs.
Continued programs like guided RTL book reading, refresher sessions supported these further.
Auroville Institute of Applied Technology Programme
- The Shifu program inspired the question of what solutions exist for undergraduate education in rural India. If educational institutions need to incorporate skills, competencies and inner capacities then skill development and RTL should be part of the curriculum in higher education. This is precisely the case at AIAT which offers a 3 year Bachelor of Vocation program where each semester has a course on values based leadership. Since most of the children are Tamilian the workshops and refreshers are conducted both in English and Tamil.
- Summer Workshops – Week long technology workshops offered on robotics and drones, electronics, python programming and each day starts with introducing an RTL tool before the technical sessions. These sessions are bilingual based on participants’ needs.
- Dr. Sanjeev Ranganathan the principal of AIAT is often asked to deliver talks about RTL Tech – Technology for Well Being for faculty from all over Tamil Nadu by Pondicherry University programs through MMTTP (Malvia Mission Teacher Training Programs) – These interactive seminars includes reflection on self and reimaging design of educational projects using the Conscious Full-Spectrum Response (CFSR) and land better when the interaction is in Tamil.
STEM Land programmes
RTL programs are not limited to adults – the same powerful tools are available to children from 6th grade onwards.
The programs are conducted for children in the Auroville outreach schools, in the Govt Schools around Auroville and children visiting from Tamil Nadu for workshops.
STEM Land runs centers in Isai Ambalam School, Udavi School as well as visits other schools to support the education there. At their stem centers technology for well being is a focus and children participate in the RTL programs in Tamil learning how to make decisions and work together especially when they work on projects that they care about.
Thamarai Programme
The team at Thamarai Learning Centre www.thamarai.org use RTL tools and templates to guide our work and support the agency of our team, students and local community. We practice in house, have hosted RTl evenings in the community and support two RTL programs annually to approximately 300 people. We have also completed speciality programs such as Youth Challenges and Opportunities – Career Development. RTL programs have supported us to work towards transforming inequities of caste, gender and other forms of discrimination and build a counter culture of dignity and respect. Some members of our team have been able to use RTL tools to advocate for 3rd level education instead of early marriage, to transform community conflict, and personal challenges.
Amma-Appa Programme
The ability to create a new future, inside-out exists, in each human being. Kyoung Yyoun Lee, a manager and chef at the Visitors Center Café at Auroville felt that the RTL workshop she was attending would be even more useful conducted in the person’s mother tongue (being Korean herself). She felt a dedicated Tamil workshop, beyond Tamil translations, for her co-workers in her kitchen at Visitors Center, and perhaps in Auroville, would be more impactful and create a shared language and shared practice of the tools to enhance both work and home lives. To honour the people who served during the first 3-part RTL training in Auroville, it was felt important to immediately create an RTL training for the service staff and workers in the local language. Thus was born the Amma (Mother)- Appa (Father) program – the names the workers were referred to with respect to how they were treated and they treated people they cared for. The Amma Appa programme is now offered annually to cohorts ranging from 60 to 200 participants from various units of Auroville and residents within the bioregion.
The program builds confidence, capacity and a shared language at the workspace leading to improved efficiency and integrity. It is designed at three levels
- Enhances self-awareness and personal potential
- Enhances ability to see underlying patterns in self, work and society that result in recurring problems,
- Enhances ability to design and implement solutions.
The program is accessible to all and does not require a capacity to be able to read or write. It gives participants a felt sense that the impact of daily work is beyond just making a living but recognises them as active participants in a movement towards human unity and fullest potential for people and planet.
The 2026 cohort of the Amma Appa programme focuses on substance abuse and life at full potential during the months of May (9-10) and June (6-7) 2026.
