Aniruddha and I spent some time visiting the single teacher schools being run in the Kondh adivasi villages by Nisarga Trust. Mr Ajay Kumar, the general secretary of APVVU (Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Laborer's Union) accompanied us. Neither Aniruddha and I speak or understand Telugu, so we were a little apprehensive about how it would turn out. Still the visit turned out to amazing and absolutely unique experience. We hope others will find this report useful in understanding the project better.
We’d like to thank Mr. Ajay Kumar, all the teachers, Mr Ponnelu, all the villagers, the adivasi youth who helped us with our luggage – for their warmth, friendship, patience and time.
Project Summary
Nisarga Trust has been running single schools in Kondh villages in the adivasi areas of Visakhapatnam district. Kondhs in Visakhapatnam (Vizag) a primitive tribal group, are migrants from neighboring Orissa, displaced by various development projects and their villages. The are located in remote areas, with little or no access to any modern facilities like roads, electricity, schools, healthcare. The teachers of the school are adivasi youth from nearby villages. The schools run from class I-III, with the aim of preparing the children for the residential schools run by the tribal development authority (Aashram Paathshala). The teachers are envisioned to become community organizers. The long term goal is to organize the Kondhs for their rights.
AID and Asha have been supporting ten of these schools, which have been running since Sept 2002.
Knowing that not everybody will have
the time or
inclination to read the detailed report, it is preceded by a
summary. The
pictures should also give a general overview of the visit.
http://home.comcast.net/~asvaidya/visit-pictures.html
Visit Summary
We spent three days visiting several Kondh villages and got a very good feel for the area as well as the people and their way of life. We were also able to understand how the Nisarga Trust has been running the project, as well as an up and close view of how the schools function. We met eight of the teachers and spent some time talking to them. We were able to visit five of the ten schools being supported by Asha and AID and observe four of them running.
The schools are running quite well, attendance is good, most of the children seemed very happy and the teachers seemed quite motivated. Some children have done really well after joining the govt. residential schools, even skipping a grade, while others have found it difficult and come back home. The teachers are also involved in community work, helping villagers with various issues. There are several challenges – health issues, sustaining agriculture in the limited land, gender disparities, eventually successfully organizing the marginalized adivasis to demand their rights. But we feel that the group has made a good start under very challenging circumstances.
The report details our experiences at the teacher’s meeting, as well as our visit to each of the five schools. We also paid a short visit to the residential school run by the tribal development authority. We end with a brief note about the Kondhs.
We started our visit early morning of Jan 2nd after breakfast at Ajay's place. After about a 2-1/2 hour jeep ride from Ankapalle we reached the Kalyanapulava reservoir area of G Madugula mandal, a scheduled area. From Kalyanapulava, we would cover the rest of the journey on foot, heading into the reserve forests where the Kondh villages are located. We'd exit out at the other end of the forest area into the non-scheduled V Madugula mandal. Besides Ajay, Ponnelu, his long associate and two young boys from Buddumamidi village accompanied us.
Before heading into the reserved forest, we stopped at the adivasi village of Chemalapadu. Here the local APVVU activists performed two small skits - one describing their work as union activists, the other described the harassment they faced from forest officials. Both these were being prepared for the World Social Forum (WSF) cultural program. These activists would be part of the 800 members of APVVU who would attend the WSF.
Ajay told us that this area was where he started his work in 1991 settling land disputes and helping the adivasis obtain 'pattas'/official records for their land. As Ajay went further into the interior he found Kondh villages for which there were no official records. All their efforts for official recognition for the villages did not succeed. Luckily, a conscientious district officer agreed to tour the villages with them. As a result of his interest the villages were finally included in the Gidutooru panchayat. This was in 1994. After this initial success, these villages haven't benefited significantly from any govt. programs.
Walking past the Kalyanapulava reservoir for about an hour, we reached the first Kondh village of Ajaypuram. This village was founded by 14 families who moved here from another village, Buddumamidi. APVVU had found about 70 acres of govt. wasteland at the forest boundary. The families cleared this land and started a cashew plantation, on their own, without any outside help. Ajay and other APVVU activists have helped them obtain official documents for the land. There's no school in this village. The children from here attend school in nearby villages.
After a short stop, we headed towards Buddumamidi, the orginial home of the people of Ajaypuram. The villagers warned us - partly in jest, that we wouldnot be able to reach their 'ghaati' (their word for hill). The climb became very steep and the adivasi trails did not have any switchbacks. We went straight up the mountain, through a thick bamboo forest. Most of the time, we couldn't even see a proper trail [Its difficult to imagine how Nagendra managed to travel here in the dark]. After a grueling 4-4.5 hrs, we reached our destination much later than scheduled, at 3.30 pm in the afternoon.
Meeting with Teachers
Teachers from nine schools had already arrived at Buddumamidi for an informal meeting. (unfortunately we didn’t note down the names of all the teachers and their villages). Some of the teachers we met - Mr Daya Rao (Jerrai), Mr Suryananarayana (Neyyalabanda), Mr Sinhachalam (Nettamamidi), Mr Baburao (Ganugarolu ), Mr Chennaiah (Buddumamidi). [Nagendra has obtained details of all the schools in his visit, so we didn't ask for the information].
Most of the teachers told us that they had sought the job because of financial need - employment is hard to come by. But they all said that they have found a lot of satisfaction in their work - because of the difference they are able to make and the affection shown by the children. The government runs GVVK schools similar to the ones run by Nisarga Trust in other areas, but the teachers don't get regular salaries - so the teachers don't stay in the village and they don't run very well. On the other hand all the children from their schools can read write and do simple math.
We asked them about the main challenges in their work. Language is a big challenge, most children don't understand Telugu, and in the more remote villages, few villagers speak Telugu. Children being less exposed to the outside world, having lead a sheltered life and having never been to a school before, it is challenging to bring them out of their shell. Attendance at harvesting time is poor.
The schools also need black boards. Slates that were distributed earlier have got spoilt. They also felt that a game kit consisting of balls, rings etc would be useful. They didn't complain about their salaries, even though the govt. teachers receive much higher salaries (~ Rs 5000).
The teachers use games, songs to attract the children to school as well enable them to learn numbers, alphabet, words. But they felt more training in alternate teaching methods would be useful. At the start, all the teachers had attended a training program that was organized by a progressive teacher's association. But only four of the original teachers have stayed. The others have only received informal training from their peers.
We inquired about how the schools are monitored and how teachers are able to exchange information with each other and learn from their experiences. The teachers meet on the 10th of each month at Jalampalli which is where they have the opportunity to meet and discuss. Mostly Mr Sivaprasad, the coordinator for the schools attends the teachers meeting, and tours the villages. Ajay joins him as his schedule permits. Another activist, Mr Chenti from V Madugula also visits the villages and schools and files reports.
The teachers maintain a daily report of their work as well as attendance register. The schools run from Mon-Sat. The teachers are allowed to take holidays as long as they compensate for them for eg. by taking class on Sundays or other national holidays. The school must run for at least 20 days each month. The coordinators also encourage the villagers to give feedback on schools - the school is for them and their word is primary. Recently the villagers of Ganugurolu had written a confidential letter to the coordinators that they were unhappy with the teacher. After independently verifying the complaints, they replaced him.
We asked about the villagers' response to their work and if and how they had been able to involve themselves in community issues. All the teachers feel very welcomed and valued in the villages. They gave us some examples of community involvement:
Recently, they'd filed application forms for the Antoyodaya ration scheme to the mandal office for all villages (poorest of the poor are identified under this government program to get rations for Rs 3/kg of rice and Rs 2/kg of wheat). Health-workers with the pulse-polio campaign as well as the homeo-health kit come to some villages like Jerrai, Nettamamidi and the teachers there help them with their work. Daya Rao from Jerrai helped 35 families from his village get ration cards. The teachers also mentioned that when traders (Sahukars) come to their village to buy produce, the villagers insist that the teachers be present so that the traders are not able to trick them. Incidents of thieving of their produce and other harassment by outsiders who come to the forest have reduced. The request for a medicine kit for the villages (for which they have requested funding) also came from the teachers.
Ajay mentioned that the occasionally the teachers are involved in some other events that APVVU organizes so that they feel part of a larger effort. For example the teachers attended Asia Social Forum in 2003 - with a children's cultural troupe. When noted social activist Medha Patkar visited Chodavaram during the Desh Bachao/Desh Banao mobilization by National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), the teachers and some of the children attended and organized a cultural program. Since traveling outside is very time consuming, these activities are kept to a minimum so that the running of the school is not affected.
General impressions about the schools
We felt that the schools were running quite well, even without considering the special circumstances, and the minimal resources available.
The schools are not run like traditional schools. The class atmosphere is less formal and more flexible. There are children of different ages, at differing levels. The teacher evaluates each child individually, introducing new concepts at an appropriate time. There is no formal testing. Some very young children less than five years also attend school. Most of the times we saw them sitting in the back talking and playing amongst themselves, occasionally paying attention or participating in a poetry recitation.
The schools buildings are sheds with thatched grass roofs - there are no walls. The slanting roof reaches fairly low, only about 3-4 feet above the ground. It's a very effective shelter from winds and the heat of the sun. The roof is also supposed to keep out the rain. The schools do not have any furniture - no chairs or mats, but floors are kept clean and free of dust by regularly plastering with mud and cowdung. Most don't have blackboards or any other educational tools.
Village: Buddumamidi
Teacher : Mr Chennaiah.
Chennaiah has been teacher for a little over a year. He's also from the Kondh community, but speaks a slightly different dialect. It has been easier for him to interact with the villagers and the children, as language is less of a problem for him.
Since we had a very packed day ahead of us, the teacher convened the school early at 7am (the regular time is 9am). As soon as we entered the class, the children wished us good-morning, but one little girl began to cry (perhaps due to stranger anxiety).
The school has 30 children, most in the age group 5-15 and - 6 small kids - probably under 5yrs. About 23 of the children were present. Some children come from the nearby hamlet of Gurrumamidi and weren't able to arrive early that day. Chennaiah's spent most of the last year teaching the children Telugu. Buddumamidi being quite remote, very few people speak Telugu. Now all the children can read write and parents are learning telugu from their children. Some of the children recited poetry, others wrote down telugu letters as well as 'maatras'/'gunintaalu'. Next year 8 children are expected to join the aashram paathshaalas.
There was no blackboard in the class, most of the children had slates - though some older kids did not - probably because the class was hurriedly summoned together very early in the morning. The children played some games, one of which was a number counting game. We'd brought some toys that we'd collected via an informal toy drive and presented some to the kids. Ajay felt toys like finger puppets would be useful for teachers - at least we saw the kids eyes' light up with excitement when they saw them!
Chennaiah seems to have gained the trust and acceptance of the village – the village head had good things to say about him. He has also been talking to the young men of the village about health issues. Following his lead several of them had stopped smoking tobacco. This a very common practice, both among women and men, leading to a higher incidence of some cancers.
After a quick breakfast, of some delicious upama, we took our leave. On our way we passed the village of Gurrumamidi - a small new Kondh settlement. There's no school here, the children attend the neighboring schools. We learnt that the villagers were having some land disputes with the neighboring villages, Buddumamidi and Nettamamidi. Ajay suggested that the teachers facilitate a meeting of the heads of the three villages to settle this problem. The villagers were planning to clear more forest area for cultivation. Ajay suggested that they instead try to avail existing govt. programs for shade-grown coffee plantations and requested Chennaiah to follow it up.
Village: Nettamamidi
Teacher : Mr Simhachalam.
The next school we visited was in Nettamamidi village. We met a government health worker who was assigned to work at this village. She's a non-adivasi and her family is settled on the outskirts of the village. We saw her health register, but she's never got any medicine (she started almost six months ago) so she's able to do very little.
There were about 16 children in the class - the total enrollment is about 20. The children are in the age group 5-12. The older children don't attend school, they have to work in the fields and tend to cattle. Some of them were watching the proceedings from outside, as were some adults from the village. The teacher has spoken to the parents and the children - initially they would come to the school in the evenings, but eventually that too stopped. We briefly talked about how a pedal powered bike would probably help with evening classes.
Some of the children recited poetry for us, others wrote down Telugu letters as well as 'maatras'/'gunintaalu'. One child recited a sanskrit shloka ! The others recited poetry about months of the year and numbers. The younger children who were a little shy were being prodded/encouraged by the adults standing outside.
Four children from this village joined the aashram pathshaalas last year, three of them have returned. We met the only boy who has stayed on and was home for the holidays. He seems to have adjusted quite well and has made friends with Kondh children from other villages. We also spoke to two of the boys who had come back. One of the boys had been beaten by a teacher, so he didn't want to return. The other was sticking by his friend. Mr. Simhachalam’s persuasions have not helped. The teachers and Ajay assured us that they would follow up at the aashram paathshaala.
Village: Neyyalabanda
Teacher : Mr K Suryanarayan
Our next stop was Neyyalabanda and we headed straight for the school, which was already in progress. The area around the school was fenced off with a gate at the entrance. The students had also planted a vegetable garden growing tomatos, chilli peppers, and some squashes.
Mr Suryanarayan had been teaching for seven months. The school had 20 children from the village, and seven more from neighbouring villages of Bodiliponeku and Palamamidi. Most of the children were in the 5-10 age group, the older children didn't attend as they were involved with agriculture. The students of this school seemed better dressed, many had textbooks, and they were relatively relaxed, not intimidated by us at all. There was also a much larger crowd of villagers watching from outside.
The children recited some poetry and songs. There's playtime in the school for playing games like marbles, hopping etc. We saw the attendance register and the daily report that he was maintaining. We also distributed the toys we'd got along with us.
The teacher said that the villagers had been cooperative and were sending their children to school. He mentioned that since this was the harvesting season, and most villagers were busy with farm-work - we wasn't able find help with chores like fetching of water or cooking which he's has to do all by himself. The school fence needed some repair work but again the villagers have been too busy with the harvest season.
Suryanarayan has tried to help the community with problems, for example he tried to procure medicine from the mandal health office. This sort of work is very time intensive - involving at least two days of travel time to the Mandal office - and the school invariably suffers. So it cannot be done by the teachers on a regular basis.
The villagers celebrated with the dhimsa dance and we joined them for a short while. We had lunch here and moved on to visit Seetalabanda, Jeerai and Vasamamidi.
Village: Seetalabanda
Teacher: Mr P Konda Babu.
The teacher at Seetalabanda was sick and had left for his hometown a few days back. We spoke with the headman and he said that the teacher was doing a good job and was a 'very good boy'. The school has 20 children, most in the age group 5-10 - apart from three families all the rest are sending their children to school. The teacher has spoken to the families several times but to no affect. He contrasted this teacher to the one before who did not do much work.
Village: Vasamamidi
Vasamamidi and Jerrai are neigboring twin villages - in the words of Ajay “like Secundrabad and Hyderabad”. This area is a little more exposed to the outside world. In fact we later learnt that one of the villagers had been elected to the panchayat.
The Nisarga Trust has closed down its school in Vasamamidi. The government started a school with two teachers here some months ago - so they feel their presence is not really needed. The govt school hasn't been working very well - both the teachers have not been around for some time and the mid day meal program only ran for some weeks. The coordinators and the teacher from Jerrai have been asking the villagers to complain to the Mandal office, but the villagers are reluctant.
The people of these two villages have built a check dam as well as an approach dirt-road utilizing govt. food for work programs. Several months have passed but they were still awaiting payment a total of what we calculated to be about a 1000 kgs of rice. The villagers have gone to the mandal office to complain but they've been given the usual runaround. (We've promised to write a letter to the Mandal Office about this).
We finally reached Jerrai around 5 pm and it was already getting dark. According to the original plan we were to have visited two/three more villages - Virudapalli, Ganugurolu and one more, all least another 2hr climb away. We had to send a message that we'd not be able to come. We felt a little bad as some of the villagers from Ganugurolu had come all the way to Buddumamidi the day before and insisted that we visit them.
Village: Jerrai
Teacher: Mr. Daya Rao
The school had a huge compound/playground where most of the village as well as many of the neighboring Vasamamidi villagers seemed to have assembled. The villagers were in the mood to celebrate and there was dhimsa dancing both before and after dinner!
We made our visit to the school as it opened the next morning around 9am. The Jerrai school was the best looking -it had a beautiful rock & flower garden, a vegetable patch, and a large playground. Inside, the school shed had a wooden name-plate, there were some charts hanging on the wall, a makeshift wooden black-board, quotations written on the wood beams and a school bell. Most children had their own text books, they were very well dressed and very much at ease despite our presence.
Daya Rao has been teaching from the beginning, for about 16 months. He started the class with a prayer, followed by a recital of Vande Mataram and a pledge. The class size is 37 and all children are from Jerrai. At the end of this year, 13 children will be ready to join the aashram paathshala, four of them girls. Some parents are reluctant to send their children to the residential school, but he's still trying to persuade them. Last year 3 students from the school joined the aashram pathshaala. They have adjusted to their new school quite well and two of them will be directly promoted to the 5th grade at the end of this year. Many villagers including women speak telugu, so language not a major issue here.
The teacher has made flashcards with letters and numbers out of cardboard. He demonstrated how they were used in the classroom. [For eg - asked a student to spell out a word/number using the cards - the student selected the appropriate cards called out his/her friends to hold the individual letters in the right order.]
The children recited some poems and songs for us. The students get some time for sports and games each day, they play games like kho-kho, 4-stones, musical chair,s etc. The teacher talks about cleanliness and personal hygiene in the class - also asks the parents to send their children to school bathed and dressed in clean clothes.
As with the other teachers, we asked him what he thought was his big achievement so far. His answer was a bit dramatic: When he arrived in the village it was raining very heavily. For thirty minutes, while getting drenched in the downpour, he tried to talk to the villagers about his plans, but no one was interested. Starting out with such odds, and himself coming from a remote village, he thinks his biggest achievement is just being able to run the school for so long.
Daya Rao had attended the Asha workshop on arts and craft in Timbuktu. There they were taught to make toys out of clay and paper, to stitch simple things like school bags and some new songs and poems. He's introduced clay modeling to the children.
We joined the children as they played some games in the playground before taking our leave.
Our return out of the forests was mostly going downhill on a steep slope – a relief from all the climbing for me, but Aniruddha really hurt his knees. On the way we stopped at the twin hamlets Gurralugummi village where we had our lunch. The Pedduru river and some of its tributaries flow past Gurralugummi - there are a number of waterfalls and also some white-water. There is a forest road connecting Gurralugummi to Jalampalli - its a kutcha road maintained and used by the forest department to harvest forest wood. We arrived at the Pedduru dam site around 6 pm, where the jeep had come to pick us up. We saw the submergence due to the dam as well as the rehabilitation sites. We were running late so didn’t get a chance to speak to any of the villagers or activists.
On the way back we stopped for a short while at the Laya training center where the monthly meeting of the teachers is held. This multi-storied building has an interesting eco-friendly contruction - it is build entirely with hollow bricks. It has an arch roof to avoid the use of any concrete.
Tribal Authority Residential School
Some ways past the training center was the Aashram Paathshala/Tribal Development Authority residential school of Narisipeta. We stopped here for a while and noticed that most of the building there were dark. When we asked, the children said that their hostel building hadn't had electricity for about a week. The teacher’s quarters were well lit. We asked to speak to the principal or any of the teachers. Only the P.T. teacher was present. He didn't seem to think lack of electricity in the children's quarters was a problem - the children had kerosene lamps in their rooms. The ITDA office hadn't paid the electricity bill for the school, hence the electricity had been cut. The principal lived in Chodavaram, a town we'd pass on our way back. Ajay took her contact information and we stopped uninvited by at her place to chat.
The principal, Ms Rajeshwari, seemed quite apologetic about the whole thing. She had written to the ITDA office when the electricity was turned off, but hadn't heard back. We wondered why she hadn't made a phone call. She said that she was going to do that the first thing the next day.
We also briefly mentioned the Kondh children and how several of them
had
dropped out due to difficulties in adjusting, particularly one kid had
complained about beating. She first seemed to justify it then later
became
defensive. that she became principal only a few weeks ago, so she
couldn't be held responsible for what had happened. She assured us that
she'd
talk to the concerned teacher and make sure the incident wasn't
repeated.
General Observations about the Kondhs
Kondhs are a primitive tribal group who've migrated to Vishakhapatnam from Orissa, displaced by various delvelopment projects like the Hirakud dam. The first set of migrants settled in the Arraku valley, in northern part of Visakhapatnam district. About thirty or so years ago, some people from the Arraku valley migrated to the forest areas of the G Madugula Mandal. They still maintain contact with their relatives in Arraku.
People live in row houses made of mud, with thatched grass roofs. They use firewood for cooking and keeping warm, but the kitchens don't have any chimneys. We were quite sure that most of the people coughing was due to smoke irritation.
The area does not receive heavy rainfall, so they mainly practice dry/rain fed agriculture. The commonly grown crops are cereals like ragi and jowar and legumes like pigeon peas (toor dal), kidney beans. Rice is grown in some small stream fed areas. Most villages are located on top of hills and the area around it is cleared and cultivated. The soil is of poor quality, filled with stones. The yield drops quickly, hence shifting agriculture is practiced. Only very basic agriculture techniques are used. Ploughing is done by hand tools and sometimes using cattle. There is no use of fertilizer or manure. Step cultivation is used for paddy fields, but otherwise we didn't see any use of bunds.
The deforestation around the villages is quite visible - more because the villages are surrounded by thick forest. The Kondh were displaced due to so called development projects in Orissa without proper resettlement and rehabilitation. In a way the environmental cost of those project is in evidence even here. It also made us realize what an impact human habitation has on the environment, even with such a simple way of life.
The people rear cattle, goats, hens and pigs. We were surprised on being told that they do not consume any milk. Cattle is used in farming or sold for money and sometimes for meat. They collect some forest produce like tamarind, and hunt wild boar - but farming and cattle rearing are the primary economic activity. Agricultural produce and cattle are sold to trading communities outside. Some traders come to the villages to buy produce. The traders also provide credit to the villagers usually for expenditures incurred in festivals, or marriages. This is paid back in kind with interest.
The village has a headman who's selected by the villagers. Typically it’s an older person who's skilled in negotiating and communicating with outsiders. People have both kondh and Telugu names, but the villages surprisingly all had Telugu names. There are mango trees in most villages - in fact 'mamidi' is Telugu for mango. Many of their rituals and festivals involve the use of mango. They have their own local deities. In villages more in contact with the outside world, mainstream Hindu deities may also be worshipped.
The society is patriarchal, but as is true in other adivasi communities, women enjoy a better status. Older women play an important role performing festival rituals and also sometimes the traditional healers. But women have to do a disproportionate amount of the work - household chores, fetching of water, agricultural work, even clearing of the forests.
The health situation did not seem very good. The food they eat is quite nutritious, so apparently under-nutrition is not a major problem. But there is practically no access to medicines to simple ailments. We saw a small child who was limping because a injury to his knee had become badly infected. Another small kid had a swollen cheek perhaps because a boil had become infected (or as one doctor later told us, it could also be tuberculosis). Some villagers were approaching Ajay requesting for medicines for injuries, fever or malaria. We gave them what we were carrying (some chloroquine tablets and a tube of antiseptic cream) and Ajay promised to send more through the teachers. This may or may not be correlated, but we saw more misery in those villages, where men were drunk, people looked gloomy, the village was not kept very clean, and the village headman didn't seem strong. Drinking seems to be quite common primarily among men. They consume a toddy alcohol, Jeelugu, made from the Jeelugu palm tree. Both men and women smoke – every village we went to had tobacco plants on the outskirts. Apparently certain cancers are more common because of the smoking, but this is anecdotal as no one has done any heath survey or held any health camp here.
[The website www.aptribes.com has some useful of information about tribes living in AP, their development statistics, government programs, tribal development offices and some contact information etc.]
Concluding Remarks
We feel the schools are running really well despite the extremely challenging circumstances, with bare minimum resources. It’s very important to ensure that the school program is strengthened and continues to run smoothly, so that the group has a solid base to build on for any future work.
As mentioned in
reports before, there is urgent need for
some basic facilities – black boards, slates, text books, charts,
stationary.
It would also be nice to have game kits for sports, art and craft
material and
toys. Teachers also expressed interest in alternate teaching methods.
The group
is planning an exposure trip to Vizag city as well as a summer camp for
kids
this spring. Some financial support (Rs 10000) is needed for the
exposure trip.
APVVU is also in need
of a digital camera as well as a PC.
We feel that there are ways to further improve the program. For instance, running evening class for children who cannot attend during daytime. We can help by supporting the pedal power generators for the villages – none of them have electricity. If the group is more proactive about monitoring children in the residential schools, it may be possible to stem the dropouts. All teachers could also introduce basic health and hygiene concepts to children.
Due to the delay in sending money on our part, the teachers hadn't received salaries for the months of Oct. and Nov.. Even the salary for Dec. was distributed by borrowing money. We should try to avoid this in the future if we want the program to run well – as it is the teachers already lead a difficult life.
We'd also like to note that the feedback that we received through last year about the project was more or less consistent with what we observed in our visit.
We feel that more interventions would be useful, especially in the areas of health, agriculture, energy, simple village based technology and improving economic opportunities. It would be good if these interventions are in a phased manner, also taking care that they benefit first the most marginalized even amongst the Kondhs. Some examples of this could be: