Bharathi Trust is a development organisation with its headquarter at Tiruvallur, Tiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu, India. It has been in working for the last 8 years for the empowerment of tribal communities. A social activist by the name Siddamma is guiding the organisation as its director. She started the organisation with the prime objective of planning and implementing integrated community development programmes for the overall well being and development of the Irulas, a tribal community, who have been the most deprived section in the society, living in the most remote areas under dire and impoverished conditions.

The Trust was formed and evolved over the last eight years with Siddamma's involvement social work with the. Siddamma got involved with the Irulas at Tiruvallur area when a group of villages from this community approached her to help them out with their problems. At that time she was residing in Madras. In the process of helping them out, when she visited the village, she realised that a lot more was needed to be done for these people. She had to first develop the villager’s confidence in her if she had to do something for them. This she did by living with the villagers for almost two years during which she learnt of their problems first hand. She organised cultural programmes, schools for children, and other motivational programmes, which were oriented towards getting the community together. She acted as their voice against the forces that were exploiting the villagers. She also gave the Irulas a working knowledge of dealing with the local officials so that they could be better equipped to take care of their own problems.

In the process of doing this she realised that there were many more Irula villages which badly needed support. This led to her activities being spread over to sixty villages in these eight years, which in turn led to the formation of Bharathi Trust. Through this trust, she could do her job more efficiently along with a team, since managing many villages single-handedly is an uphill task.

Irulas are a tribe who used to dwell in the forest and are often referred to as snake and rat catchers. This is no longer their means of living, and over these years due to forest act and other legislation, the have moved away from the forests. Unfortunately, often they have been unable to find a sustainable occupation for themselves. They are unskilled in doing any kind of job. They earn their living by ‘coolie’ work. This could be either by working as labourers in the fields of the landlords during the sowing and harvesting seasons or by working in the rice mills. They sometimes do some odd jobs in the landlord’s house. Fishing is also an occupation in some of the Irulas’ villages. Some of them collect firewood from the forest to sell them in the villages. The problem is that, only some get money while the remaining just get some rice or other things in kind as a payment for their labour.

Their economic hardships are compounded by the fact that the society at large has been neglecting them over the years. The landlords under whom they work treat them as bonded labourers in many of these villages.

The rice mill labourers live in appalling conditions. They stay, work, eat and sleep in the rice mills, as they have no other place to live in. Moreover the fear of the outer world forces them to continue their livelihood within the four walls of the mills. This is also due to the fact that they have no money or savings with which they could start a living. Lastly, for those who are able to live outside, the owners have been acting as obstacles, as they would be losing extremely cheap labour.

The Irulas outside the rice mills are equally worse off. They don’t have a fixed means of livelihood. Their living conditions in the villages are not favourable. Many of them don’t even have a land certificate for the place where they reside. Due to this, they are unable to draw any benefits that may be forthcoming to them from the government. As a result they don’t have basic amenities like electricity and roads connecting their villages. Luckily they seem to have water supply, mostly through tube-wells. Another problem being commonly faced by the Irulas is the apathy of the authorities towards their concerns. They are not even given the Schedule Tribe certificate that may help them in getting some benefits extended to them by the government. Even, some children who manage to study and go through the exams don’t get the certificates.

These circumstances have resulted in a situation where the Irulas are virtually cut off from the mainstream of the society. They are totally ignorant about the happenings in the external world to the extent that they don’t even know the benefits that they are eligible to receive as a Schedule Tribe. This state of affairs is the result of their illiteracy. An overwhelming majority (almost 95 %) of the Irulas is illiterate. Taking advantage of this, the landlords cheat these people into signing the land granted to them by the government against paltry loans given to them by the landlords. As a result they have lost whatever assets they have possessed.

The above stated facts are only the tips of the iceberg of the challenges in the lives of an average Irulas. It would suffice to say that this community needs a lot more attention from the government and the society at large.

Bharathi Trust since its inception in 1990, has been working for the uplift and empowerment of the Irula tribal community in Tiruvallur district. The main activities of Bharathi Trust has been the organisation of the Irula tribal communities as a collective forum, and liason works with the local government for obtaining benefits of development schemes and programmes, such as, free patta land (registered land), group housing, hand pumps, joint cultivation, reclamation of waste land and obtaining pump sets. It has also been involved in the promotion and preservation of the rich cultural and folk heritage of these tribal communities and pioneered in the creation of transit schools for helping children (including child labourers) join main stream government schools, and providing day care centres. Human rights related issue such as atrocities by landlords has been tackled by the organisation by forming Sarpam Irula Sangam - a people's forum for Irula tribal communities in the villages. Out of the strenuous and sincere effort of Bharathi Trust and the Sargams, lands legally belonging to members of the Irula tribe, but wrongfully dispossessed by landlords, were recovered.

Some of the key achievements of the that Bharathi Trust are listed below:

Formation of Sarpam Irulas Sangam: Organisation of the tribal community at the grass-roots with the direct participation of the Irula villagers were created primarily for taking up and dealing with tribal land, human rights related issues and implementing government schemes and programmes. Extensive training was given to the leaders of the Samgam in being the liaison between the people and the authorities, lobbying for the rights of Irula members in the district and sub-divisional level authorities, advocacy works with government to obtain development schemes and concessions for the community. So for, through these leaders, the Irula community has been able to get 183 patta land, 140 group housing, 4 hand pumps and 5 acres of land with two pump sets from the government. So far, there are 30 village level Sarpam Irula Sangam. In each Sangam there are women leaders who are actively involved in their community work. The Bharathi Trust has and continues to play an important role in empowering the Irula villagers through the formation and running of these Sangams.

Motivational centres for Irula children to get back into mainstream schools: A large number of Irula families are working in the modern rice mills of the landlords. They remain as bonded labours with their families to eke out a living with the meagre wage of Rs.20 (less than 50 cents) per day. Many children in other villages also do not attend school due to the lack of facilities and lack of awareness. As such, to release and rehabilitate the child labourers and also to integrate the children in the Irula villages to the mainstream society, 2 motivational centres were started. The goal was to motivate elders as well as the children to get the latter enrolled in government schools. The results from the first two of the motivational centres were very encouraging with all the children subsequently joining regular schools. Following this, eight more centres have been started and are being run with the support by Asha for Education in other villages.

Irulas cultural team : Cultural team consisting of professional Irula tribal folk dancers and drummers work on preserving and propagating the cultural heritage of the community. The team performs cultural and folk dance to entertain the community while at the same time educating the target population on social issues, human rights, and importance of health and education.

Siddamma, the director, heads the organisation. She is helped in all matters by a facilitator, Mr.Krishnan, who is the cluster co-ordinator. The entire organisation’s activities are divided into clusters headed by a cluster in-charge. A cluster is a group of villages that lie in close vicinity to each other. Each cluster represents a Taluk (district subdivision) in the district. The cluster-in-charge of all the clusters report to the cluster co-ordinator. The cluster Co-ordinator gets information and co-ordinates the activities amongst all the cluster-in-charges and presides over their meetings. All the problems and the plans of action are discussed in these meetings. Next in the chain, the clusters-in-charge, are responsible in implementing these plans in the villages with the help of the field workers. These field workers are in turn responsible for the individual villages.

In each village a village head, a treasurer and a secretary are elected who are a part of the village. They are the lowest but most important link in the chain. They integrate the village and represent the people in any decision making. In this process the Irula people themselves are responsible for their own decisions; Bharathi Trust is only the facilitator.

Many Irulas in this region live in interior and extremely backward villages. They have no access to basic facilities such as electricity, drinking water, primary school, road transportation and health care facilities. Even the Government health services are not available to these tribes as they live in the interior places. Often for medical help, patients have to be carried many kilometers to the nearest health care facilities on foot.

Due to illiteracy, ignorance, absence of media exposure and unavailability of medical services coupled with superstitious beliefs and myths, there has been high incidence of infant mortality, maternal mortality, anaemia, severe malnutrition, reproductive tract infection, TB, Typhoid, Jaundice, uterine cancer, cataract, night blindness and skin diseases. While many of these diseases and health problems are avoidable by simple preventive methods or cured by medication, due to lack to basic awareness and infrastructure, these diseases continue to be widely prevalent among the Irula tribal communities.

As of today, in most of the target villages there is no government medical services or help. Even in case of emergency there is no immediate relief by way of primary health care or rescue service such as ambulance facilities.

Bharathi Trust is looking for financial support to be able to initiate and implement health project to address the dismal health situation of the Irula tribal community in the district.

1. Name of the organisation

and address : BHARATHI TRUST

184/21C Jaya nagar,

Tiruvallur – 602 001

Tamil nadu, South India.

2) Project title : Community health education

& medical service for Irula tribes.

3) Name of the applicant and

legal holder : Siddamma (Managing Trustee)

BHARATHI TRUST

4) Registration Particulars : Registered under Public charitable trust

Register No : 315/90

5) FCRA Particulars : FCRA No - 076030248

6) Location of the project :

Country : India

State : Tamil Nadu

District : Tiruvallur

Post office : Tiruvallur

Area : Rural

7) Funds to be remitted in favour of : BHARATHI TRUST

8) Bank particulars : A/c.No 16638, Indian Bank,

Tiruvanmiyur, Chennai - 41

10) Over all objective of the project : To provide and implement community health

Community health education and medical services will be given to 30 Irula tribal villagers located in the most backward and interior areas of their habitats. Under this project nearly 10,000 population will be covered.

Four well trained and skilled full time health workers will be engaged. Each health worker will be in charge of taluk level operations of the project. These health workers will co-ordinate and visit Irula tribal villages along with part time paramedical health workers. Each health worker will be having a medical kit.

There will be two community health organisers who would contact and organise Irula tribal villages for regular workshops and seminars, medical camps, village meetings, street plays, exhibition, film shows, etc on health education and promotion. We would also appoint part time health workers after imparting relevant skills and training in health field. These workers will be selected from the Irula tribal communities such as local midwives who traditionally take care of home deliveries of babies and Irula girls who are studied up to 8th or 10^th standard. Professional medical practitioners through residential placement training for certain periods will impart skills and training. Full time health workers would also be given practical training and health education on the field also.

Full time health workers and community health organisers will be given extensive training in community health in the tribal set-up, including preventive medicines. Each para-medical health worker will be covering 5 Irula tribal villages, who would visit and help the full time health workers in regular health visits, camps, symptomatic diagnosis and referral services including follow up actions. They would maintain regular health surveillance of each target villages.

In one year 24 health camps will be organised in all the Irula tribal target areas of operation by professionally qualified medical practitioners whereby other project staff will be involved in the camps. This community health project for Irula tribals in the district will be co-ordinated by medical health professional with relevant experience in community health medicine.

The programme will be implemented in three stages.

(i) A survey of the health problems in the Irula villages and formation of the health care committee will be done in the first stage. The paramedic workers will be selected and trained during this stage. This will be the organisational stage.

(ii) The second stage will be conducting Health Camps in the different villages and treatment for people who need it (if necessary by referring them to the hospitals in government hospitals in the towns). This will be the implementation stage addressing the current health needs.

(iii) The third stage will focus on the health education of the community and the documentation of the different diseases in the communities and their prevention and treatment. This stage will also addresses the sustenance and facilitation of health care in the communities for the future.

• Focus of the project on the most backward and interior pockets of Irula tribal village hamlets in the district.

• Local staff from the Irula tribal community generally given preference to achieve self reliance and sustainability of the project in the long run.

• Regular health surveillance and health card system would be maintained.

• Along with health camps for health education, diagnosis and referrals, medicines would also be provided.

• Our cultural team would enact plays, compose folk songs and make other visual presentation for educating the Irula tribes on health - both disease prevention and health promotion aspects.

• Our ambulance van will be used for emergency relief and rescue services, i.e., accident, deliveries as well as video shows, health camps, follow up of referral services.

• Collaboration and co-ordination work will be carried out with Government health departments and rural health services, along with other NGO’s and government officials for effective rural health delivery systems.

• Liaison work with the government will be done for obtaining health care facilities / centres for Irula tribal communities to ensure the sustainability of the project.

• Special attention will be given to reproductive and child health by focussed education, medical services, health card systems, immunisation programmes.

• Wherever indigenous herbal medicines are effective for small ailments such as headache, cold etc will be encouraged.

• Focus will be made on personal hygiene, pre-natal and post-natal health education /services, education on STD/HIV/AIDS, Communicable diseases such as (TB, Asthma etc), effects of alcoholism, low cost nutrition, healthy and safe motherhood, child development etc.

• Major emphasis will be laid on preventive medicine apart from recuperative care.

• Sarpam Irula’s sangam (people’s organisation of Irula tribal community) of this district will be involved and their participation will be ensured at every stage of the project.

1. Location : Tiruvallur district Villages

Taluk: Tiruvallur Vengatthur Kandigai

Selai

Thathukhan pettai

Gandhi gramam

Bankaru pettai

Thiruperur

Uttukottai Rasapalayam

Perandur

Kottakulam

Senjiagaram

T.B. puram

Nelvai

Tiruttani Kanjeepadi

Gulur

Panappakkam

Illuppur

Kamatchi Kandigai

Tituttani Anna Nagar

Hill area(tample)

Mettukandigai

Ponneri Meenjur

Mullai Nagar

Chengiamma nagar

Kattur

Aeri medu

Kanchi vayal

Thidir nagaram

Palaverkadu kolathumedu

Kattavur

Kanaga valli puram

Total number of villages 30, will be covered under the proposed community health project.

Please note that the exchange rate assumed below is Rs. 45.00 = $1.00. The figures have been rounded to the nearest whole dollar.

• Consolidated