Kala Pradarshani

TOGETHER WE CANMAKE A DIFFERENCE

By Shloka Shetty

After 70 years of independence, India has made a significant progress, economically, culturally as well as socially. But when we look at the scheduled tribes of the India, we find that they are far apart from these developments. So, development of these people is a must, for the socioeconomic growth of the country. According to the 2011 Census, Scheduled Tribes population is 104,281,034 which constitute 8.614% of the total population of the country. 89.97% of them live in rural areas and 10.03% in urban areas. The decade-wise population growth of the tribal from the census 2001 to 2011 has been 23.66% against the 17.69% of the entire population.

In the state of Maharashtra, 9.4% of the total population is tribal, there are three mountain ranges in the state known as Sahyadri, Satpuda and Gondwan. In total, there are 47 scheduled tribal population groups in the State and majority of them are inhabitants of these geographically difficult terrain. Out of these 47 groups, 17 are major tribal groups. In the Sahyadri ranges are inhabited by MahadeoKoli, Katkari, Warli, MalharKoli and Kokana groups.

The Warlis are one of the major tribes of Maharashtra. Warlis are largely concentrated in the Dahanu and the Talaseri taluka of Thane district of Maharashtra. They are cultivators and gatherers, growing a single crop, usually paddy, for subsistence or gathering forest produce and dominating livestock. Their lives are undoubtedly dependent on nature.

The Tribal Population of Mumbai: Several tribal groups live in Mumbai. The Warli make up the majority of those living in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). This tribe is native to Maharashtra and to the Dangs, in Gujarat. The Koli (koli: who maintains a relationship with water) are one of the largest tribal groups in western India (1.2 million).

1,795 Adivasi families in 43 padasare are scattered mainly along the edge of the park. Meanwhile, the process of urbanization has continued to move northward, thus surrounding lands that are now legally protected in the name of wildlife.

The Tribal Population of Mumbai

Interactions with the children, discussion with tribes and observations during the field visit to tribal hamlets revealed precarious poverty, low level of education, absence of basic amenities like electricity and absence of Integrated Child Development Center’s (ICDS) Aganwadi which provide nutritious food to the children of the hamlets. Ignorance among tribal families and almost nil access to entitlements in the middle of the financial capital of India is really evident. It had to be addressed and we could not afford to ignore prevailing poverty and inadequate social infrastructure at the cost of the future of children and a dignified life to their family.

SGNP offers a complex setting due to its environmental diversity, making it difficult to implement any task. Working in a team and working together collectively for addressing the problems of the local people would be a good proposition. As a result Janhavi Ghosh, Shloka Shetty and Jeevika Ghosh all high school students at Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai came together with great zeal and formed a committed team with an intent of bringing sustainable positive change in the lives of underprivileged.

First step was making up one’s mind. The team had to commit themselves and to the people that they wanted to work with and serve. Second stage was to meet the children, their families, NGO and communicating with conviction about the long term community engagement they had planned to do. Third was identifying and accessing needs of the community so as to work towards resolving problems in community faces. It was pertinent to draw an action plan and gradually garner financial and kind resources for the activities and programmes.

Focus areas touching lives of the tribal deeply were identified in the form of education, environment, arts and cultural revival. In the area of education, strategies have been developed to work on pre-primary education, scholarship support, community library and excursions tours for building aspiration among children.

Environment intervention was also planned which would add to biodiversity and provide sustainable source of income. Solar lamp distribution was also identified as one of the key area which had a potential of positively impacting students’ academics and health.

Warli art form is dying with time as artisans are not paid much and is not developed along the line of sustainable livelihood model. Keeping this in mind, Arts and Culture revival was also identified as a major activity.

Together We can Make a Difference

Creating awareness among people and raising funds for the identified focus area was the first step towards working with underprivileged tribal communities of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai. Two things had to be simultaneously planned, which are, identification of the villages for carrying out activities and raising resources for the same. The rapport of JAAG, an NGO working in the villages, accessibility, distance to school, and needs of the students in the area were the main drivers for selecting hamlets.

Janhavi, Shloka and Jeevika banked on each other’s strengths. Sholka has s formsl training in Kathak, a popular cultural dance form in India. Janhavi and Jeevika had interest in Jewelry designs. Shloka decided to perform Kathak for raising funds while Janhavi and Jeevika designed jewelries. The proceeds that came from the Kathak performance and selling of jewelry have been invested in the social project in the area of education, environment and revival of Warli art form. However, funds raised through afore specified mode was not adequate to support all the activities, as a result the team reached out to individual donors and convinced them about their association with tribal in SGNP in collaboration with JAAG, addressing adversaties and paving way for the brighter future of the present generation and generations to come.

Fund Raising Drive and Identifying focus areas

Current Interventionsand Impact in SGNP

In the area of education, the team supported pre-primary education and education support group, community library project and provided exposure trips for understanding the outer world to set up a strong aspirational foundation for these children. Here is a look at each of the intervention and its impact.

Pre Primary and Education Support Programme benefiting 275 tribal children were supported with the intent of providing educational opportunities to the tribal children, organizing children and creating a platform to increase their participation and ensuring capacity building of the community

Table 1: Pre Primary Scenario in SGNPGraph 2 reveals an extremely positive and important trend about integrating students in primary school from pre-primary school. Teachers are assigned responsibility of facilitating process of integration in coordination with parents and school authorities. In last two years total of 46 students which includes 24 girls and 22 boys have been integrated in the school with the girl and boy integration ratio of 52% and 48%. This is a very healthy sign that parents are taking interest in the education of the girl students.

Education

S.No

Name of the tribal Hamlet

Pre Primary Center Students Integrated in Primary School

Girls Boys Tot al2015 -16 2016 -17

Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total

1 Patachepani 11 10 21 4 3 7 4 5 9

2 Akrachibhati 6 7 13 2 1 3 2 3 5

3 Barikpayri 7 16 23 2 2 4 5 4 9

4 Palaspada 9 8 17 3 2 5 2 2 4

Total 33 41 74 11 8 19 13 14 27

Pre Primary Scenario in SGNP

Integrating students in Primary School

Graph2: Integrating students in Primary SchoolSeries of activities has increased rate of school enrolment, retention of children attending formal schools, made children aware of their rights and increased community participation in educational development of students.

Excursion tours and exposures help students to understand things related to history, science, develop an objective mind set, develop confidence and mainly inspire them to dream big. Keeping these aspects in mind an educational tour, Masti Ki Pathshala was organized covering students of Sanjay Gandhi National Park and students from rural area of Uran block. Exposure trip was organized to the Planetarium, and Museum in Mumbai.

Exposure tours of students residing at SGNP

With the advancement of digital age and technological know-how, there is a necessity to keep people up to date on the progress in the world of information, hence the need for community library centers. The idea of an information center such as a library will act as a catalyst to many of these challenges. Hence community library identified with intent of promoting a culture of reading among the people of the slums and bringing information close to the students who might not under ordinary circumstances have access to such information.

Community Libraries in Sanjay Gandhi National Park

A staggering 400 hectares of forest area has been wiped off the map of Maharashtra in four years (2007-2011), raising eyebrows about conservation strategies adopted by forest and environment authorities here. Destruction of forests creates numerous environmental catastrophes, including altering local rainfall patterns, accelerating soil erosion, flooding the rivers, and threatening millions of species of plants, animals and insects with extinction.

Hence, there is a desperate need to conserve our natural resources through community participation and collective efforts. Environment initiatives were planned with the objective of keeping the environmental balance for human and animal well being and providing supplementary livelihoods options.

Over 1500 fruit bearing trees were planted in SGNP and Gorai Creek near Mumbai benefiting over 200 Households. Four suitable species namely Mango, Cashew, Chikoo and Coconut were identified. Each family was given 5-10 plants. It was made sure that the initiative would have involvement of the farmers not only in decision making process but also during implementation phase.

Most of the tribal hamlets do not have access to electricity. As a result students have to use kerosene lamps to study. Emission of the carbon di oxide from kerosene is not good for the health of the students. Moreover not having light is stress on the eyes and leads to lesser time invested on study and education. Such factors collectively contribute to weaker educational foundation, lack of interest in studies and consequent drop out of the school and also resultant distance from the educational and social empowerment. Keeping these basic factors in mind, 400 solar lamps were distributed among needy, deserving and underprivileged students from 11 tribal hamlets of Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Solar lights have provided them much needed access to light which has enabled them to invest more time on the studies.

Environment

Solar Lamp Distribution

In her book painted World of Warlis; Yashodhara Dalmiya claimed that the Warlis carry on a tradition of sketching back to 2500 or 3000 BCE. Warli painting has various subjects or themes, which presents a picture of their daily life. Each painting has various elements giving a huge outlook. These paintings are different from any other folk painting and religious icons .

Usually painted on cloth or wood, Warli paintings are made on a dark backdrop, usually red, made from mud, dung and leaves. A distinctive feature of Warli paintings is the use of white color. The entire painting is always made in white, which traditionally was made from rice paste. And a bamboo stick chewed at one end was used as a brush, which gives the distinctive appearance to these paintings. By combining a repetitive pattern of triangles, circles and squares, the Warlis have over the centuries depicted various aspects of their culture and have used these paintings as a medium of communication with the outside world. Today even the Warli men have taken up to this art form and have modernized it by using paint in their works. However this rare art form is slowly losing its prominence and has become very much localized to the small geographical location of Wada. The team has taken the initiative to promote and revive this rare art form by patronizing various traditional Warli artists by providing a platform for portraying their artistic prowess with objectives of providing alternative source of livelihood to the youth and reviving Warli painting and arts

Warli Art Revival

The team’s concerntrated community work would continue even while they are perusing education abroad. Current initiatives have provided them an opportunity to learn about the deprived tribal communities in the midst of affluence and their response to oppression. What has impressed them about tribal communities is their optimism, hopes that students, women and community in general harbour. It has given them exposure on how tribal communities deal with entitlements and their rights which are sometimes within SGNP.

The team plans to sustain it by raising adequate resource for supporting exist-ing initiatives and some activities which are in the pipeline. They are planning a computer literacy project for the tribal communities and to strengthen arts revival initiatives which would not only provide sustainable source of income to the beneficiaries but also contribute to reviving tribal arts.

They also wish to undertake Computer Literacy Project in SGNP with the objectives of making technology accessible to the most deserving section of the society, improving skills of the students and to increase computer literacy ratio in the area and reducing digital divide.

Future Plans

C/o. Mangal Lad, B-22, Plot No.62, Gharkul CHS., Gorai, Borivali (W), Mumbai 400091