Pause for a Cause – Samata for Tribals

MetroMela met one such couple, Ravi and Bhanumati Rebbapragada, which is actively involved in making a difference to many lives in an unassuming way. Ravi is a graduate in rural management and Bhanumati is an alumnus of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The couple allows their work to speak through Samata, the NGO that they run in the city.

 

From “living with the tribals of the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, who showed where the problem lay’’ in 1991, today Samata has grown into a movement that provides legal support and advocates sustainable development in areas like healthcare, drinking water, basic infrastructure and primary education, within a balanced-ecological framework.

 

At the grassroots, Samata has built some 40 community-managed primary education centers in villages where it runs the Balamitra Tribal Education Program, using some relevant Waldorf Education techniques (where literature, music, art or even mathematics are not subjects to be learned but to be experienced).

 

Samata trains tribal youth as community teachers (who in turn teach the younger children coming from tribal communities like the Khonds, Bagata, Nookadore, Kondora etc) to cultivate traditional song, music and crafts in an interactive curriculum. Use of natural ‘work and play’ materials like mud and dyes to make clay models and bamboo, reeds and jute for weaving and craft are encouraged.

 

At the outskirts of Vizag, Samata’s model school in Sagar Nagar has a community of tribal students, teachers and volunteers from Germany. The motley group gives us an interesting insight into the interchange of cross-cultural ideas. Music activities like flute and eurhythmy are interspersed with animal-life lessons. A teacher-training program is also conducted, once every three months, here.

 

At the macro level, Samata strongly believes in the thought that “the health of the hills is the wealth of the plains”. It advocates support to tribals to protect and safeguard their rights against proposed bauxite and other mining activities in their areas, to campaign against large-scale displacement of tribals for proposed irrigation projects, to help achieve tribal self-rule by promoting decentralized governance institutions like Gram Sabhas (village counsels) and to create awareness amongst tribal women in taking up leadership in governance and community struggles.

 

The organization has also had its brush with fame, back in 1997, with the landmark Supreme Court judgment (Samata Versus The State of Andhra Pradesh and others) ruling in its favor to prevent non-tribals from mining in the tribal belt of Anantagiri mandal.

 

But the simplicity and grit of Ravi and Bhanumati’s working method continues to be the driving force for the organization’s good work. We watch a young tribal girl walk in shyly into the office to speak to them, and we can’t help but not miss the confident twinkle in her eye.

 

Samata is a registered non-for-profit NGO. You can contact them at -

 

D. No. 14-40-1, Krishna Vihar,

Emani Colony, Gokale Road,

Maharanipeta, Vizag – 530002.

Tel – 0891-2737662