Cultural heritage

“We want our young generation to be rooted in our specific culture and to have good opportunities to take their fate into their own hands. Using our language is essential. What alphabet we use in school, matters less. We tell our students about Ol-chiki [the Santali alphabet invented in 1925 and one of India’s 22 official languages since 2004] – encouraging, but not forcing them to learn it.”–  Boro Baski in “The pros and cons of Ol-chiki” (D+C Development and Cooperation, e-Paper April 2021)
https://www.dandc.eu/sites/default/files/pdf_files/dc_2021-04.pdf
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=21581

JAGWAR Santal Literary Meet 2015 (14-15 February) focusing on “individual and collective memories of loss”: Johar HRD Centre, Dumka – Jharkhand

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“Memory is a tricky thing: it picks and chooses what to preserve and what to discard. Sometimes it is the trivial that triggers the process of remembering a great loss.” – Temsula Ao, These Hills Called Home       Concept Note Last year, Jagwar-1: Santal Literary Meet 2013 had been held with the objective of bringing … Read more

The importance of one’s mother-tongue in primary education: Suitable teaching methods and textbooks

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Imagine yourself as a child attending school only to realize that you cannot understand anything said by your teachers (and vice-versa) … Yet this has long been the unenviable situation faced by “tribal” children all over the world including India, a country whose constitution protects the right of children to learn through their mother tongue: Across the region, … Read more

Inculcating pride for their mother tongue in Madia children: Language is more than a medium of communication – Maharashtra

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Samiksha Godse-Amte, The Hindu, April 3, 2013 | Read the full article here >> When an ‘apple’ was shown in a kindergarten class and asked what it was, the question was greeted with silence as the children had never seen one before. But when they were shown a mahua flower; they all came up with … Read more

Warli art “a vivid expression of the daily and social events”: Traceable to the 10th century, rediscovered in the early 1970s – Maharashtra

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  Mysore, October 28, 2010 Warli folk paintings, according to art critic L. Shivalingappa, are paintings from the Maharashtra region. Warli is the name of the largest tribe found on the northern outskirts of Mumbai. “Warli comes from the word ‘warla’, which means a piece of land,” he explains. Warli art was first discovered in the … Read more

On protecting one’s unique culture and tradition while gaining access to education and “modern civilization”: Dambaru Sisha, the first MLA from the reclusive Bonda community – Odisha

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Priya Ranjan Sahu, Hindustan Times  Bhubaneswar, May 23, 2014 The Bondas, one of India’s most primitive tribes living in the remote hills of Odisha’s Malkangiri district, turned a new leaf on Friday. Dambaru Sisha, 34, took the oath of office as the first MLA from the reclusive tribes that remained untouched by civilization for centuries. … Read more