ODISHA ADIBASI MANCH AN APEX BODY OF TRIBALS HAVING ITS PRESENSE IN 22 DISTRICTS OF ODISHA

Campaign at State level by Odisha Adibasi Manch

on Mother Tongue based ECE in Tribal areas in 10 districts-27 blocks-2700 villages

ADIBASIS IN ODISHA62 TYPES OF GROUPS23% POPULATION2nd HIGHEST POPULATION AFTER

CHHATTISGARH13 PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE TRIBAL GROUPS[PVTG]30 LANGUAGES SPOKEN32 LANGUAGES LOSTOLNY TWO TRADITIONAL LIPIS-

OLCHIKI & SORA SAMPENG

Goal of the Campaign

• To implement mother tongue based Multi-lingual quality early childhood education in the existing govt. ICDS and CBCD centers of tribal pockets of Odisha for successful transition of young tribal children from preschool to primary school.

Specific Objectives

• Modified ARUNIMA should have a section for the mother tongue based multi lingual approach in tribal area.

• Tribal women only should be selected as Awganwadi Worker(AWW) in the tribal areas (Please refer to the Supreme Court ruling on this).

• The State Government should demand for bringing the children of below 6 years under the purview of Right to Education Act

• To upgrade Mini- ICDS centers in to Main ICDS centers in tribal area.• To strengthen the present Early Childhood Education component in existing ICDS centers and if

needed, appointment of additional AWWs specifically for this purpose.• To prepare Local context TLM as per the need of Mother Tongue based ECE in every center.• Advocacy from palli sabha, gram sabha/panchayat to state level for policy changes in ECE,

promoting Mother Tongue Based ECE and Multi-Lingual approaches in existing ICDS centers of tribal area of Odisha.

Project Start period-April-2012

Activities[8 months]• Launching of the campaign in the presence of newly elected PRI members and OAM

Convenors• Intensive Orientation of Block and District Convenors about the campaign.• Baseline survey done to assess the situation. Campaign strategies are developed on the

basis of the data analysis.• 24 Block level sensitisation workshops involving 2562 participants including BDO, ABDO,

CDPO, GPO, PRI members, ICDS Supervisors, AWWs, local CBOs, NGOs, etc• 4224 palli sabha resolutions taken and sent to Governor, CM and WCD Secretary by

registered post.• 48551 post cards sent to the above persons demanding MT base MLE in AWCs.• State level workshops-2-setting out strategies and plan of action. Alliance building.• Continuous Lobbying with MLAs and Ministers and bureaucrats[Tribal Minister, WCD

Minister, Tribal MLAs, Tribal Secretary, WCD Secretary, Chief Secretary, OPEPA Director and Chief Minister and giving them memorandum].

• identified community resource persons and experts to develop a context based primer in tribal language mainly in Saura and Kui. Primers developed with help of PREM.

• Worked as a part of the documentary on ECE campaign .• Facilitated the media campaigns at block, district and region.• Worked as a part of NACDIP in influencing Draft ECCE Policy, lobbying with Central Tribal

minister, Parliamentary affairs minister, party heads of other political parties, Rajya Sabha MPs, Lok Sabha MPs, etc

Major Achievements• Govt’s decision to implement MTMLE using 10 tribal languages in Phase-I

and 19 languages in phase-II in 25000 AWCs in tribal areas.• Govt’s decision to modify Arunima-the ECCE guide book in the light of our

demand to make it tribal context specific. OPEPA becomes the nodal agency.

• State govt’s highest education authority-OPEPA includes PREM/OAM in its team of experts for curriculum and other T&L materials development.

• Several mini-ICDS centres are upgraded to main ICDS centres.• In tribal areas, AWW appointment is from local tribal community.• Mainstream media create space for this campaign. Wide coverage from all

bylines-block,dist,state,centre. Live Talk show in electronic media.• Most of the suggestions from NACDIP/OAM incorporated in WCD

feedback format.• Concerned ministers, many MLAs, ZPs and PRI members sensitised on MT

based MLE. Developed and strengthened an institutional relationship.

• To include rest of the languages in the purview of recent Govt decision which has to be implemented in spirit.

• To upgrade all Mini-ICDS centres in to Main ICDS centres in tribal areas.

• Appointment of additional tribal AWW specifically to look after ECE. Capacity building of these AWWs in MT based MLE.

• Special training for existing non-tribal AWWs to work in tribal areas, including knowledge of tribal dialect;

• Further sentisation of policy makers-MLAs and MPs in the state.

• To advocate for meeting the minimum quality standards as prescribed in ECCE daft policy within a time frame.

• We have to strengthen the existing ICDS system and make the AWC function. There is no short cut to it…

THE WAYS FORWARD….

Palli Sabha-the crux of the campaign

Explaining about the Resolution and Post Card campaign

BLOCK LEVEL SENSITIZATION WORKSHOPS

NATIONAL WORKSHOP

STATE LEVEL WORKSHOPS

With Tribal Minister, GoO With WCD Minister, GoO

OAM State Convenors with Chief Secretary GoO With OPEPA Director, GoO

Second time meeting Chief Secretary, Tribal Commissioner and Tribal Minister to have PRI members and MLAs sensitisation/convention

With Sri A V Swamy, Rajya Sabha MP

With Tribal Minister, GOIMemorandum to Sri V Narayana

Swamy, Minister, PMO

With Dilip Tirkey, Rajya Sabha MP

With Sri Raja Swain, MLA

INVEST IN YOUNG TRIBAL CHILDREN