Started the conversation enquiring about her health. She had spinal problems for about 3 months and was advised not to travel. She is doing OK now. She attended the Asha conference at Chingelput and found it a rewarding experience. The meeting with other people involved in similar activities like her was extremely useful.
Discussion then shifted to the status of the motivational centers. The last two schools are being started at Gummidipoondi. Land had been obtained and the construction was starting on the week.of the 14th. One school would start functioning by the 30th of this month. The teachers were already visiting the village to meet the children. This helps build the relationship between the teachers and the kids before school commences. There will be no school in Kothur at this point. The issue is one of land realization since those belonging to the Irulas have been taken away by the landlords. The landlords are very strong here and Siddamma mentioned that they were not in a position to deal with them right now.
The Ramapuram school has been closed temporarily due to the drought conditions currently prevailing in the district. Irulas have been migrating to other areas in search of work and the school is being shifted to another village. They initially wanted to convert it into something like a hostel but dropped the idea due to some legal issues (when the no. of students exceeds 15 they need to register it as a residential school).
In MGR Nagar I and II, 30 families have shifted and 44 more families have to shift. Land will be finalized by the end of the month. Regular training is taking place in the other schools. A lady named Shyamala who is an expert on alternative education has been training the teachers. An artist named Satya is also working with BT on education through drawing. She mentioned that Satya had also spent two days in discussions with Shanmuga.
There will be a few minor changes in the budget which will be sent to us with the next report. Some left over money from construction may be used to buy toys for the children. No extra money will be needed however.
We then moved on to the computer center proposal. Siddamma mentioned that there were some educated Irula youths (10th to 12th std.) who had to go back to agriculture and started questioning the utility of their education. She said that there is a good demand for programmers in Chennai. Job opportunities also exist at an industrial park named SIPCOT, which is about 30 km from Ponneri. The youth would be taught English and some of the basic software for 1 year at the computer center. They are now awaiting our feedback on the proposal. She also talked about how one of the Irula youth had made a jovial remark that ' since they were experts at catching snakes and rats they would have no trouble catching a mouse'.
She also wants to experiment with alternative education by setting up a model school where the kids would be taught other skills like Bharatanatyam, pottery etc. She wants to use this model school to influence the government in order to raise the quality of education in its schools.
I brought up the matter of vocation for the Irulas. She feels that the computer center would really benefit the community. I talked to her about the articles in newspapers on other Irula communities that had taken up orchid farming or snake venom extraction as lucrative occupations. She has considered organic farming too as a possibility but the Irulas have no funds to cultivate the land. For venom extraction they need to be registered under the cooperative society act.
The next topic was Dinesh's idea of recording Irula stories. She has been giving this serious thought for a while and has also talked to Shanmuga about it. Her idea is to record not just their stories but also their social and cultural background (means of hunting, marriage customs, medicine etc.). She believes there is something special about these people and that there is a lot which we can learn from them. For instance, she hasn't come across any Irula afflicted with polio or mentally retarded. They need a good scribe who can document all these. Bharathi Trust is planning to come out with a book on real life stories of Irula children (one story will be on the first kid who graduated). Satya, the artist will help provide the visuals for these tales.
There was this 90 year old man named Gangan who died a few years ago who was both an expert hunter and a herbal medicine man. He had documented several of the trees, herbs and medicine of the Irulas. This will be used as one of the text books in the Asha schools. Siddamma would also like to include the history of the Irula tribe and each of their villages as a part of the syllabus. She needs someone to help her prepare a document on the organization at Tiruvallur.
The discussions following this were not focussed on any particular topic as such. There will be an Irula convention at Tiruvallur in March where 20, 000 people are expected to participate. Also in March is an cultural mela at Mahabalipuram. Every year a large group of Irulas gather at Mahabalipuram on a certain date to offer prayers to their deities. They used to spend the previous night just sitting in the beach. Siddamma convinced them to get a few musical instruments and convert it to a night of dancing, drum beat and festivities. This has now become the annual mela in the Irula calendar and Siddamma urged us to attend it if we happened to be in India.
Bharathi Trust has also helped initiate an union for unorganized labor in 8 districts at the state level. The TN govt. has formed a social security board which provides compensation to the workers in case of accidents. The workers are required to be union members for this purpose and need a photo id. The union initiated by BT fulfills this objective.
To summarise, the project seems to be progressing well despite a few hitches. Siddamma came across as a committed and dynamic woman who is able to put her ideas into action.
Laxi