Proposal for WAH 2000

Location:  11 villages in Thiruvallur district, Tamil Nadu, near the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border

Organization: Bharathi Trust, Thiruvallur, Tamil Nadu

Background Information:
    The Irulas are tribal people living mainly in Thiruvallur district, TN.  Their population in this region number at least 25,000. Their livelihood consists of odd jobs like coolie work, rice mill labour, fishing, collecting firewood and catching rats/snakes. They are the poorest of the poor and many of them are even unaware of their eligibility as a schedule tribe. There is almost 100% illiteracy in many villages.
 

    The Bharathi Trust (BT) was founded by Siddamma about 5 years ago to help the cause of the Irulas. BT's approach is to get the Irulas community intimately involved with the project planning and execution.  Since there is no tradition of going to school among many of the tribe members, the children have faced severe challenges trying to join the mainstream government schools.  Moreover, the nearest schools are a few kilometres away from most of the Irula villages.  This leads to the predictable high drop-out rates.  In the past, BT has successfully helped Irula children at Gandhigram to join government schools by making them go through their "motivational centres".  Siddamma has been supported by CRY in her earlier endeavours with BT.  The current project proposal has been strongly recommended to Asha for Education by Rema Menon of CRY.
 

Goal of the Current Project:
To help the Irula children in the 11 villages to become part of mainstream schooling system via motivational centres/transitional schools.

This goal is to be achieved by:

• Constructing and running 8 motivational centres for 2 to 3 years to cater to the children in the 11 villages.  These centres will help children in the age group 5-15 subsequently join the mainstream schooling process.
• Motivating the community members to ensure that everyone sees the benefit of their children being educated and encourage parents to persist in educating their children.

The project is expected to reach completion in about 3 years when children start attending government schools regularly.  This time frame is based on past experience in similar projects.
 

Number of Children: 532 (259 female, 273 male)

Number of Teachers: 20

Budget Requirement for 2 Years for the 8 Motivational Centres::         $79,710.00 (approx. $75 per child per year)

Amount Raised so far:                                                                                $33,400.00

Request Funding from WAH:                                               up to $46,310

For further information on the budget and funds raised, please visit http://irulaproject.netfirms.com/Budget.html
 

Project Highlights:

• Bharathi Trust has a strong record of successfully executing similar projects in other villages.
• This is an Asha Stars project with member commitment to work directly with Bharathi Trust at least for the duration of this project.
• Has been visited and approved by Shanmuga and other Asha Chennai volunteers.
• Caters to one of the poorest communities in India and has the potential to empower the whole community.
• Bharathi Trust is mostly run by Irulas themselves.
• CRY has sponsored Siddamma of Bharathi Trust in the earlier projects and strongly recommends her work.
• It will be attempted to recruit teachers for these motivational centres from the women of the neighbouring villages who will be imparted suitable training.

Key Reference Sites:
Site report from Asha for Education volunteer, Shanmuga
Replies from Siddamma, the Bharathi Trust co-ordinator, for questions raised by Asha for Education volunteers
Some press clippings on the Irulas in Thiruvallur district
 

Photographs from the project sites