Emancipation through education - How education can be an answer to Naxalism in Niyamgiri hills

“I want to become a doctor” says a girl from one of the few indigenous tribes in the hills of Niyamgiri…In English.

In a region where rampant malarial and starvation deaths were once infamous, today, there is hope. It is miraculous to hear such words from the local children who have their own dreams and are guided by their parent’s ambitions. Most of them have come from extremely humble families, yet many others have never seen 2 proper meals in a single day. A large majority of them belong to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The lives of many local families and tribes has changed for the better as they realize that education can open many shut doors for their future.

This is probably the first time such formal education has been made available for experience in the hills. Government initiatives and schemes had made little impact mainly due to lack of proper implementation. In addition, another fatal issue hindered any signs of progress that could have been visible much earlier. Naxalism. Naxals hate the spreading of education around this area. After all, whom will they force to replenish their cadres if not the children and youth of the region who are ignorant and illiterate? There have been many cases where these violence mongers have destroyed many schools and taken the lives of children who dared go to school. They feat that education will make their cause weak and the new generation will never chose the path of violence to fight for their rights. The primary hindrance that they pose for the villagers is to stop their access to health services and education. “Education and healthcare are the enemies of the Naxals. In their misguided quest to rid the world of social inequality, they need to realise that integration with theState will do more for these people than burning the provisions that we give the villagers”, says K Siva Subramani, the Superintendent of Police, Rayagada district, where a part of the Niyamgiri range falls.

Children in nursery

In such a scenario, it takes immense energies and perseverance to bring in a sense of assurance amongst the locals to send their children to schools. This is no mere preaching but systematic efforts aimed to bring about a positive behavioural change. A question arose – What will incentivise the parents to send their children to school daily? The answer was already there…but not executed to perfection till now. A centralized kitchen has been built by Vedanta to assist the Government in providing mid-day meals to 18,000 thousand students of 187 schools in Lanjigarh block. It acted as a major incentive to parents and also to the children who live in the fringes of poverty and malnutrition.

In the silent hills of Niyamgiri, Vedanta has helped build an international school with the DAV society. Campaigns like “Our Girl Our Pride” focus on promoting girl child education. Attendance in schools improved from 45% to 86%. Dropout rate down from 70% to 20%. The CSR team now runs 37 Child Care Centers which operate as day care centers looking for children in age group of 2.5 yrs to 6 years ensuring pre-schooling needs nutrition level of children.

Nurturing the lives of a new generation is a big task itself yet a mighty rewarding one too. Much is yet to be done in the silent hills of Niyamgiri to keep fueling the dreams of hundreds of children.

*The underlined words direct to a link.

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