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Objectives |
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1.
Creating socio-economic, political and cultural awareness among the poorest communities—especially the tribals, dalits, and other rural poor; |
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2.
Protecting and promoting rights of the target population with community-based people’s organisation; |
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3. Economic stability through self-help groups of women and micro-finance activities to eradicate poverty; |
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4. Human rights of all the marginalised with special emphasis on tribal, dalit and fisherfolk communities; |
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5. Women’s empowerment through community based federation and collective action to promote gender equality; |
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6. Health and legal awareness and civil rights through movement education to ensure rights of dalits, tribal and other vulnerable; |
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7.
Educational opportunities to all the children and reducing child labour and school drop-outs in order to achieve total education to all; |
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8.
Environmental preservation and organic farming promotion for sustainable natural resource management; |
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Political participation through panchayat raj institutions developments; |
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10.
Networking and alliance building for people’s rights and their education; and |
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11.
Documentation and publication and dissemination of information. |
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Background of the focused population:
- Tamil Nadu has a total Scheduled Tribe (ST) population of 0.65 million (6.5 lakhs) which constitute about 1.04 % of the total population of the state. The major tribes that inhabit the state include Irular, Kadar, Muduvan, Paaliyan, Kanikkar, Malayali, Soliga and Kurumbar and others. While there are pockets of tribal habitations especially concentrated in the Hills, there is also a significant that is dispersed mainly in northern and western Tamilnadu.
- The Primitive Tribal Groups are found as concentrated population in the Hills and also plains of North Tamilnadu. Developmental efforts are mainly through the Integrated Tribal Development Plan of Government as well as through NGOs in major tribal areas. 85 percent of the Scheduled Tribes are living in rural areas. Majority of them are economically deprived, socially marginalized and lack resources. Their access to Health, Education, Employment and other income generation opportunities is very limited. The literacy percentage of the scheduled tribes is 27.89 percent as against 63.72 percent of the general population (as per case study it is less than 10%).
- Despite several programmes and projects for the upliftment of tribal communities – they are still marginalized and remain the invisible poor located in landscapes such as hill slopes, river valleys, edges of canels, lakh bunds, periphery of reserve forests or wildlife protected areas and plains and coasts. Tribals have an intrinsic connection to natural systems. Any development activity to be relevant - needs this connection to be developed, protected and innovated constantly. Development interventions have not taken this into fact and indicators such as Hospital beds, education levels for mainstreaming have become a priority. Tribals have their lifestyles and livelihoods – instead of delineating populations from development processes; there is need for interventions to be gradual and staggered so that the mainstreaming or external change agents converge with their traditional rhythm and their view of development and empowerment. The challenge lies in the identification of crucial economic development activities, best practices, cultural patterns that can absorb and develop interventions at their own terms.
- PERT is working for the rights and development of scheduled tribe communities in Tamilnadu especially for the empowerment of Irula tribes. Through networking approach, PERT also concentrating development of all tribal communities and also having association with dalit and women’s rights forum for establishing social-justice.
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