SAIIER Annual Report 2014-2015: Arka
 Aranya |
 |
 Arulvazhi Education Centre |
| Arka | ||
Introduction
Entity::Arka is a residential centre with community focus that seeks to create an holistic environment for aging Aurovilians. It aims to help seniors sustain a healthy, balanced and harmonious lifestyle as well as to provide a space and atmosphere for one’s inner work.
Activities of the year
Arka continued to offer therapies and activities through its Wellness Centre and community spaces.
| Wellness Centre offerings: | Regular activities: | 
|
|---|---|---|
| Acupuncture | Acro Yoga | |
| Ayurvedic treatments | Body awareness | |
| Body Logic massage | Dance therapy | |
| Cranio-sacral therapy | Hatha Yoga | |
| Graphology | Health seminars | |
| Diet program | Qi Gong | |
| Face massage | Vocal Yoga | |
| Hair dressing | ||
| Hypnotherapy and chakras healing | ||
| Manicure and pedicure | ||
| Psycho-spiritual work | ||
| Reiki with foot reflexology | ||
| Tarot for self-knowledge | ||
| Yogic Healing massage |
Arka’s internet browsing centre continued offering its service to the wider community, and the Arka library and other spaces hosted several art exhibitions open to the public.
Maria Grazia and Rama continued to support the Art & Craft Atelier this year and its explorations of art as therapy. The Atelier is meant to be a place where senior people can come and interact through pleasant and creative work, in an ambience of tranquility, together with people of different ages.
| Exhibition at Arka - Chronotype© |
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| While a photograph of living beings commonly fixes to film an instant of the space-time continuum, reproducing on the two-dimensional surface an image that one thinks to be close to reality and that stimulates the unconscious processes of reconstruction by similitude that constitute the base of human visual perception, a Chronotype© fixes on the film a duration of time, usually a handful of seconds, and the space that is encompassed over that time. The reduction of a tridimensional subject on a plane that crosses it in a perceivable time, though remaining apparently still, I believe is the most adherent representation to that unknowable reality of which we are an inseparable part. |
| - Georgio |
Reflections on the year
The activities in Arka have been quite successful. Aurovilians of all ages have benefited widely, and the elder population has participated with interest in certain types of therapies and activities.
The recovery of the people in need of assistance in the convalescence rooms of Arka has been good and the rooms have been fully used by different people in need during the year.
The cooperation between Arka and the Auroville Health Service is very good with satisfaction from both sides and we follow the advice of the therapists that work with AVHS and also provide them with space for special treatments.
Future direction
We would like to develop the Art & Craft Atelier to a larger scale, creating a working space open to all who would like to participate in producing crafts. These can be from time to time displayed in periodical exhibitions. We would like to give seminars and workshops on different art and craft techniques including patchwork, embroidery, quilting, silk and cotton paintings, and making flowers from recycled plastic (as exhibited in March 2015). We always try to be a better link between the elderly population and the rest of the Auroville community, by finding new possibilities according to the the needs they express.
Conclusion
Health and wellness are integral; treating people medically is not always the proper or only solution to physical problems. Activities can help in the process of healing, and integrating ages can prevent the loneliness that often comes with old age. The atmosphere of a place can help people have a positive, healthy attitude towards life.
| Aranya |
Arulvazhi Education Centre |