People's Rural
Education Movement (PREM)
Project PREM-UNFPA
Diverse views on human rights, population, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality and sustainable development merged into a remarkable global consensus in the International Conference on Population and Development held in 1994 at Cairo; it placed individual dignity and human rights, including the right to plan one’s family, at the very heart of development. The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 in 2019 saw the progress on the mandate slow and uneven: hundreds of millions of women around the world were still not using modern contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and global targets on reducing maternal deaths had not been met. The summit made some 1,300 clear, concrete commitments to advancing the goals of the ICPD and securing the rights and dignity of all women and girls. Ultimately, gender equality and SRHR (Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights of women and adolescent girls) became the essence of the whole exercise.
The 10th country programme of UNFPA thus envisions “an India where every woman and young person, including those from the most vulnerable groups, enjoys gender equality, fully realizes sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, and fully contributes to sustainable development”. UNFPA partners with governments, other agencies and civil society to advance its mission.
People’s Rural Education Movement (PREM) has launched the ICPD program of action in collaboration with UNFPA Odisha Office setting as objectives the thee transformative results, namely,
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No unmet need of contraceptives (to prevent unwanted pregnancy)
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No preventable maternal mortality (fulfilling the Sexual Reproductive Health and Right of women and adolescent girls)
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No gender based violence (combating patriarchal customs, traditions, social norms and practices and establishing gender equality).
4 indigenous communities, that is, the Munda and Santali tribes of Mayurbhanj district, the Lanjia Saura of Gajapati and the Sudha Sabara tribe of Rayagada district, have been adopted as deserving target groups for the program.
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Tribal Academy:
Odisha Adivasi Manch (OAM), the state level tribal communities’ action for a came into being in 1992 in the process of community organisation and action movement spearheaded by PREM. Since its inception, OAM has remained steadfastly committed to the cause of Adivasis in Odisha and, been engaged in unwavering advocacy and lobby for the realization of tribal rights and entitlements. Tribal academy is an offshoot and functions as a wing of the Odisha Adivasi Manch.
Mother tongue based tribal institution, the academy is a learning or study hub, a place for learning mother language/script, culture, social tradition, traditional organic agriculture, livelihood and value system and an informal structure meant for the tribal’s self-discipline and governance, - a source of self learning and empowerment; The academy helps maintain the unity, equality, gender equity among the people of Adivasi community leading to its harmonious management. It retains the cultural heritage and upholds the culturally ingrained and valued sentiment of ‘caring for and sharing with and protection of one another’ in Adivasi community.
The PREM-UNFPA project’s effort has been to make the academies more structured and systematic. It facilitated the registration of all the targeted 4 tribal academies and got them well furnished and placed learning materials for consciousness building on the ICPD mandate.
How will the Academy benefit Adivasi society?
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The Academy can retrieve its value based past history
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It can revive the Adivasi language, culture and traditions that are on the verge of extinction.
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It can keep safe its own culture from the infiltration of external impure, polluted, corrupt, culture and to elevate and bring the culture and language up to the international level of reputation.
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The present generation can obtain education by this and work towards the preservation of the Adivasi language, culture, their rights and provisions.
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This will be instrumental of tribal people’s holistic health, education, livelihood and development.
Existing Sun/Thursday Schools and newly started Mother tongue based Newsletters constitute the main mechanism for the double objectives: retention of cultural heritages and languages on one hand and the dissemination of the ICPD mandate related messages on the other..
Sunday/Thursday Schools
The tribal academies have more than two hundred Sunday schools each. Munda community has developed syllabus and books up to 10th standard in Mundari language. Children as well as adult men and women attend the classes at different time periods set for them. The objective is to preserve the Mundari language, script and culture. Lanjia Saura community has Sunday schools for young and adult althrough the year and it has Biblical themes allotted across all Sundays to discuss. It has some health and social subjects too. Santali community too has Sunday schools to preserve their mother language, script and culture. The Sudha Sabara community runs its schools on Thursdays to deal with religious matters.
ICPD mandate ingrained Syllabi have been disused and attempted at over several workshops held at state and sub-state levels with the full involvement of respective academy leaders. The academies have integrated the ICPD mandate into the cultural ethos of different academies.
Newsletters
Newsletter has been envisioned and used as another channel of communicating the messages related to the ICPD mandate. It has wielded impact on lay people and government officials of the corresponding community for it highlighted both its cultural values in mother tongue and not in the state language unlike before and the mandate quite relevant to the situation of women and adolescent girls in the community. Write ups were from the members of the academy and the community at large. Every academy has an Editorial Board to collect materials, to review the materials along with the project and UNFPA state officials, finalize and get them printed in the respective tribal language and script. .
Media Magnet, A New Delhi based agency has been hired for three months to train the academies and the editorial boards in art, techniques and skills for a standard product that could be heart touching, inspiring and impressive to their counterparts in far off cities and states of the land and even abroad.
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