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Education is a privilege to many children in India,
and particularly to tribal children living in the interior hills
and remote forests. The lack of primary education facilities
forces many children either to walk long distances, crossing
streams and forests, to attend school, or else remain illiterate.
The quality of education, which they can get in
one of the rare government schools, is not only poor but destructive
of their traditional culture too. It makes them culturally degenerate
and economically incompetent when forced to face mainstream
society.
Especially tribal girls among primitive tribal groups do not
have access to primary education, which is one of the main causes
for their ill health and socially inducted reproductive health
problems like early marriage and motherhood.
Samata is a social justice organization working
for the protection of tribal rights in Andhra Pradesh. While
working on several development and human rights concerns of
the tribal people, we felt that education is the most urgently
required thing for them to strengthen their dignity of life,
protect their strong cultural traditions and to develop the
capacities to cope with the mainstream world.
Our vision is to provide an
opportunity for tribal children to have an education,
which is joyful and gives them opportunities to develop
their creative skills along with learning pedagogic lessons.
The idea of Balamitra education system is to
combine values and knowledge of mainstream society with the
children’s cultural identity, strengthening them for modern
India while making them aware of their heritage. At present
Balamitra is running 40 schools for tribal children in remote
villages and one residential model school. The children are
taught by teachers of tribal background, trained by Balamitra
staff. Most of the children staying with us at the Model School
are from tribal groups where there is severe poverty, ill health
and some of the children have lost either one or both of the
parents. In Balamitra Schools we give emphasis on basic language
skills, maths and science education, music and creative arts.
While teaching those ‘modern’ values we keep the
children in touch with their traditional knowledge such as farming,
traditional crafts, herbology etc. The lessons are done in a
indigenous way of Waldorf education, using natural material
found in the forests and encouraging the children to use their
creativity and own uniqueness to enjoy learning. At our regular
teacher’s trainings we develop new methods and ideas to
improve our schools and the lessons, being in a constant process.
We believe that all children
have a right to a beautiful education, which does not
necessarily mean an expensive one. We believe that the
need of learning basic skills and philosophy of existence
is in the nature of man and it is with nature that our
symbiotic existence with spirituality is shaped.
A deep respect for maintaining a balance and harmony
in nature needs to be rejuvenated for a healthy human existence
on this earth, as it is slowly getting lost in humankind today.
The traditional knowledge of the tribal people carries this
wisdom and spirituality of life, which should not die due to
the forces of modern day existence. Through our school, we want
to give our children a healthy education while developing in
them a strong respect for their culture and traditions.
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