Quality education and health for children from marginalized families: Vidyodaya & Thulir – Tamil Nadu

Vidyodaya School, located near Gudalur in the Nilgiris, TN, teaches mostly tribal children. […] Vidyodaya is more than just a school. It is a major education programme to ensure that over 3500 tribal children in the Gudalur Block of the Nilgiris district of Tamilnadu can pursue their studies. These tribes are the only ones in Tamilnadu categorized by the Govt of India under Primitive Tribal Group. Almost all these children are first generation learners.

Learn more: https://www.vidyodaya.org/vbvt >>

Source: VISWA BHARATI VIDYODAYA
URL: https://ashanet.org/project/?pid=668
Date Visited: 18 January 2022

Shanthi Kunjan with mother © Priti David in 
“The forest in Shanthi Teacher’s classroom” on Ruralindiaonline.org >>
More about Tribal elders & Women >>
Success stories >>

Thulir is an alternative school (formerly an Education Resource Center for children and young adults) for children at Sittilingi which is a tribal village in Dharmapuri District, Tamil Nadu. It is a Tamil word meaning, “tender shoot”, also “to sprout”.

Learn more: https://www.thulir.org/wp/blog >>

Source: THULIR TRUST – EDUCATION RESOURCE CENTER, DHARMAPURI
URL: https://ashanet.org/project/?pid=967
Date Visited: 18 January 2022

Watch a video titled Empowering through Education in Tamil Nadu by the Association for India’s Development >>

The group was named Asha to represent the hope that had brought these individuals together and the hope that they aimed to bring into the lives of children in India. In that summer of 1991, Asha was born at the University of California in Berkeley. Read The Beginnings by V.J.P.Srivatsavoy: A write-up about Asha’s history.

Source: ASHA: THE STORY
URL: https://ashanet.org/about/
Date Visited: 18 January 2022

Adivasi communities traditionally depended on the forest for all their nutritional needs. They subsisted mainly on fruits, vegetables, tubers, fish, small game as well as the occasional crop they grew, predominantly coarse grains. However, as time passed and the nature of, as well as their access to, forests changed, their diet started becoming deficient. […]

This deficiency started manifesting in the form of rampant malnutrition, among adults and children alike, underweight babies as well as high maternal mortality [and] increased susceptibility to Tuberculosis among the Adivasis.

Blog post “Gardening their way to Good Health” by ACCORD – Action for Community Organisation, Rehabilitation and Development (Accordweb, 14 March 2017) | Backup file:

The educational establishment has entrenched interests within it for whom the improvement of Adivasi education is not a priority and who may even look down upon them as second-class citizens.” – Amman Madan, Rama Sastry and B Ramdas in “Social Movements and Educational Change: A Case Study of the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam” | Learn more >>

“The goal is to prepare some model students in our villages, so that others will be inspired to follow them.” – Boro Baski in Long-term success of non-formal Adivasi school in West Bengal

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“It was assumed that tribal people have same health problems, similar needs and hence the uniform national pattern of rural health care would be applicable to them as well, albeit with some alteration in population: provider ratio. The different terrain and environment in which they live, different social systems, different culture and hence different health care needs were not addressed.” – Abhay Bang in Report of the Expert Committee on Tribal Health >>

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Cultural invisibility – India’s 600 potentially endangered languages | Linguistic Survey of India (official website) >> 

Explore India’s tribal cultural heritage with the help of another interactive map >>