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A tragedy with tribal youth

Government policy of ‘education for all’ have definitely impacted millions of lives in India. It has given voice to families who never been to school for generations. Tribal communities are no exception to this. In many parts of India, the first generation of educated tribal youth is now in it’s 30’s. Their parents sacrificed life earnings/land to school them. Thousands of NGOs, social workers, Govt worked tirelessly to find out of school tribal children and put them in Ashamsalas.

Exceptional educated tribal students who became doctors or government employees migrated to cities. The remaining learned youth who lost connect with parents & culture due to their residential schools, are neighther able to do traditional jobs nor to compete with skilled workers in cities. These educated and unemployed youngsters are always seen playing cricket or Kabaddi matches organised by politicians.  

On the other hand those who are employed, see no difference in earnings of uneducated and educated young workers. Infact, the notion of “more you learn, the more chances of remaining unemployed” is now viral in tribal areas. The new generation is hesitant to go beyond 8th or 10th standard.

Our small efforts with underemployed aspiring tribal youth

YOJAK did a massive survey in tribal parts of Raigad and Pune districts of Maharashtra. The tragedy with educated youth was well seen in almost every tribal village. During our village visit, our first choice of contact was well educated youngsters in a village. And with no surprise, we could find them easily available in village sitting idle without a job or underemployed.

They could understand our language and had a better worldview. They wanted to change the world around them but had no idea about what to do.

We decided to form a group of these educated young men who were in their 30s or 40s. The group members were added with natural selection process. A ‘group formation module’ was developed based on our own experiences. No wonder, after an year of selection process and grooming, these young educated youngsters decided to change their own fate.

Our underemployed youth group members were not able to save money. So we decided to start income generation activities with financial targets for 5 years. The targets were set in such a way that they together would mitigate any health or natural crisis and would never fell in poverty.

Income generation activities started based on available natural resources and markets. The available spaces such as old temples/gathering places were converted to income generation institution. Machines were  installed, trainings were conducted to run business. It was further decided to name it as “NEW AGE GRAMODYOG”.

A small place of ‘NEW AGE GRAMODYOG’ donated by village becomes one of its own kind of income generation institution. It was decided that once financial targets of a group is met, the business will be handed over to new generation group. 

It was also decided that once financial targets of a group are met, the group will actively help their neighbours. The idea is to develop their village/area into “bhukmukta & bhaymukta” village. (No place for hunger and fear).

Adarsh Self help group from Pangloli village is our first group to achieve maximum goals in three years. The group is successfully running their own paper plate business and pioneer in setting up various village development activities. Products made by SHGs are sold under brand "KUSHAL"

Currently, YOJAK is working with 15 tribal villages (One group per village) and the plan is to set up this model in 25 tribal villages by 2020.