Recent Activity

1. Nat and Rag-pickers Community (Theatre in Education) OR Work for the upliftment of Nat Community and Rag-pickers Community

Objectives

Activity Center is committed to bring social change in Nat Tribe and Rag-picker community of Tindoni and Kishan Talaiya with objective of:-

• To build self confidence among these children so that they can attain similar place as other children
• To link children with the mainstream of society and to alleviate the issues of children belong to Nat community
• To increase their access to education, health, nutrition as well as safe and clean drinking water
• To facilitate the education to the children who are in child labor and beggary
• To provide them familiar learning environment that could be supportive in their skill development and to alleviate social discrimination as well as gender based discrimination
• Empowerment of the Nat tribe and Rag-picker community using foundation of the education and upliftment and improving quality of life resulting in better health in severely malnourished the Nat tribe and Rag-picker community
• To uplift the children by reducing traditional street play profession, begging, child labor, malnutrition etc.
• To link children with the government’s ambitious schemes for children as well as to their parents such as education, PDS system, scholarship, sponsorship, residence etc. and the schemes to whom they are entitled to
• To generate awareness on child abuse and related issues
• To ensure both the children and the parents understand the importance of schooling, so that wherever they are they will move towards mainstream school system

Our Findings

During our visits to village Tindoni to know about the Nat community and we interacted with the people and tried to know their lifestyle and their problems. The notable observations are:-

• The people of the Nat community saw a decline in their traditional occupation; they found it difficult to make a living. As a result, gradually some people of the Nat community gave up their traditional occupation
• In order to make a living, the people of the Nat community, apart from showing acrobatics, also adopted other methods of employment, some started doing daily wages and some were engaged in other types of work
• Wherein, it was found that the people of the Nat community often they have to face community discrimination as a Dalit community as well as social discrimination
• People of Nat community do not use regional language among themselves; they have their own language, which is similar to Gujarati language
• The people of the Nat community have to do risky work, for their living like Riger
• These people are not linked with many government schemes, hardly getting benefits from any government social welfare scheme
• Decided to take a holistic approach. To eradicate the child labor, child bagging, malnourishment, social discrimination as well as gender discrimination from the root, a consistent and long term approach was required

Challenges

• Realized that the Nat Tribe and Rag-picker community is still facing extreme poverty because of limited opportunities which is due to lack of education and isolation from the outside world and health issue is due to lack of resources which is because of extreme poverty, caste based discrimination and economically backward
• They do not have enough resources to get the basic amenities like health facilities, education, water supply etc.
• The literacy rate is very low among both Nat and Rag-picker community. Consequently, their children are unable to access education
• Their poor economic conditions do not allow them to think about education
• Due to poverty, their parents are forced to drive away their children from reading, writing and passing their examinations and their children find the easy work such as begging, which can be helpful to get food
• The lack of education ultimately creates the problem of poverty, digital divide and unrefined socialization, which leads social exclusion from main stream society for this community
• It has analyzed that the incidence of child labor is very much high in these community as well as beggary
• The increasing cost of day-to-day and low level of income from their traditional professions have compelled the Children for begging, Women and Men to do laborer
• These communities are also deprived from government’s ambitious schemes as well as they are unable to access them
• Lack of awareness regarding health, hygiene, sanitation
• Poor health and hygiene condition of adolescent girls found. Child marriage is prominent in these communities. They marry their daughters early as 13-14 years of age

What we are doing

• Improving education quality, empowerment, upliftment in the Nat tribe and Rag-picker community of Tindoni and Kishan Talaiya
• In order to uplift the children of Nat tribe and Rag-picker community by reducing their traditional profession such as street plays and rag-picking profession of the respective community
• As a small initiative towards the development of children of Nat Tribe and Rag-picker community residing nearby Damoh town. Through this Activity Center we would like to provide Non Formal Education to children. Wherein, we will work for the children age between 6 to 14 years
• Our mobilizers will try to link these children with many government schemes, such as help in making Aadhar card, Samagra ID, Ayushman cards. School admissions etc.
• By ensuring that every child must be connected to the schools run by government and to those who are in schools and retained from dropout we will facilitate education to them by linking them with the Non Formal Education through the daily activities basis learning for 2 hours
• Make groups of adolescent girls and conduct small session on their capacity buildings and health and hygiene. This may improve their capacities and health status. Also we will try to improve their skills so that they can get some employment
• Facilitation of sanitation and hygiene demonstration along with the distribution of sanitation kit to 75 girls
• We will also strive to engage their Parents, Teachers, Panchayti Raj Institution (PRI) and activate School Management Committees (SMC) because of the local presentation understands specific needs and problems
• In order to built children’s capacities in learning skills the basics such as reading, writing and listening. We will organize problem solving activities thorough games, sports, and basic techniques
• As a vital part of the Society, we will link the children as well as their parents from Nat Tribe and Rag-picker community with the mainstream of society by reducing the social discrimination as we as gender discrimination
• We will strive to eradicate child labor and child beggary by provide them familiar learning environment that could be supportive for their skill development as well as betterment
• Yet we want to start two Activity Centers in Tindoni and Kishan Talaiya
• We will provide all kind of education such as health education along with the study material to children according to their class standard and also provide nutrition and the specific material what they need
• It will be based on principal of active participation of Nat tribe and Rag-picker community
• We will works with three key elements : Project coordinator and Mobilizer
• Capacity building of mobilizers through trainings
• Counsel parents, spread awareness, participation in School Management Committees
• Motivate children by songs, stories, local language games, activity based programs
• Help with their homework: basic reading, writing, science and mathematical skills
• Also engage government departments such as well as district administration