Dee Decew aka Bhavana

DeCew was born on 13 September 1943 in upstate New York, the eldest of six children. She left the United States in the mid-1960s and travelled through Europe and Asia, describing the years that followed as her time at the university of the road.

She arrived in Auroville in 1971 and took the name Bhavana. She lived first at Aurobrindavan and Fertile Windmill and then at Bliss, working in leather and crafts units and at the Matrimandir.

In 1983 she founded the Auroville Village Action Group, which she regarded as essential to realising Auroville's purpose in relation to its neighbours. The group began with small programmes for children and women in the surrounding villages and grew as trained social workers joined it. Support from Oxfam India from 1991 allowed it to recruit and train field staff and widen its work, and partnerships with the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development supported the formation of women's and men's self-help groups from 1999.

She also mentored young Tamil men and women from the villages. In 1993 she moved to Vérité, where she developed the Integral Learning Centre and organised Vipassana meditation retreats.

AVAG has continued after her death and now works with panchayats and settlements across the Vanur block of Villupuram district on community development, microfinance, livelihood and social enterprise training, and psychosocial support.[2][3][4]