Donate To The Poor - Help Underprivileged Children

Facilitating a nurturing, amiable and a healthy environment for the children aged 2 years to 5 years from various tribal communities inhabiting remote locations far from any governmental facilities within the natural reserves of The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu – India through systematic activity based learning methodologies. 

The ECDC project is a continuous project which will be handed over to the Indian Government at a stage when the Government is equipped and ready to begin their interventions in such remote tribal villages. The PALM2 NGO has been involved in running these ECDCs for 16 years as the government agencies are yet to create a footprint in such remote areas within the wildlife reserves of the Nilgiri Sholas. Target Area Details:

Currently our ECDCs are operating in 5 villages namely: 

We have posted one facilitator and one helper (cook/cleaning) per school.

The tribal communities we cater to in these villages are namely: 

• Paniyas 
• Kurumbas 
• Kattu Nayakas 

These villages are at least 4kms far from the closest government facilities that includes transport, public distribution system (PDS - groceries), health dispensaries, police station and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). Since these villages are located remotely within the jungles the inhabitants are often victim to human-animal conflict causing regular fatalities due to elephant/leopard/tiger attacks. Thus developmental works are very scarce and slow. 

Target Group Outlook: 

Our target tribal communities are very conservative and reserved. They shy away from any new visitors making any developmental interventions challenging. Moreover, stringent Forest Regulatory Laws have stolen most of their privileges and thus they have been restricted from living their traditional lives. This has largely affected their eating habits and traditional lifestyle. From being hunters and gatherers they are now reduced to mostly daily waged laborers in the nearby tea estates and that too limited to only a few months a year. 

Their food pattern has now been adapted to the limited groceries provided through the PDS system. With no knowledge of nutritional needs they end up with very poor food habits gravely affecting the health of these tribal communities and mostly their children. These children are mostly anaemic and suffer from various deficiency based health issues. 

Due to their persisting inhibitions towards exposure to the outside world there still exists a huge gap that needs to be bridged to help improve their quality of life. A major consequence of their reservedness is seen in the arena of education and employment. The need for education is still the least of their priority, making the younger generation less competitive and vulnerable. They are only staring at oblivion. Reservations and subsidies provided by the government without any proper guidance or facilitation are just temporary relief measures. These communities deserve strategically targeted interventions at various levels. It is this very need of intervention that has taken us to these communities. It is our strategy to engage these communities at a very close and basic level by providing a well nurtured environment for their little children through Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDC).

Mode of Intervention:

Installation of ECDCs in these tribal villages has opened up a very effective channel of correspondence between us and the villagers. Over a period of time, with the commitment and perseverance of our staff members the villagers have slowly accepted our presence in their vicinity and thus a trust based bond has grown between us. We have formed Village Development Committees (VDCs) in all these villages, with the villagers holding key positions. We have started engaging them with various discussions pertaining to the growth and development of their communities with our primary focus being health/nutrition and education of their little children. 

The villagers send their little children aged 2 years to 5 years to our ECDCs where we take care of their basic needs. We provide them with healthy food, supplements, behavioral training (good habits), hygiene practices, games, medical monitoring etc. The ECDCs operate 6 days a week and we have been providing them with food even during the pandemic times. 

We see that all the children are well nurtured with their basic needs taken care of. Furthermore we prepare the children to enter their primary schooling in the nearest government schools. We also monitor them all the way until they complete their higher secondary education by preventing any drop outs. We constantly interact with the parents of these children and come to know of the basic needs of these families too. 

Eventually we have become more of a representative organization for these communities and act as a bridge connecting them to the outside world. We also play a vital role in taking the governmental schemes to these communities on a need basis. Permanent shelters, electricity, water and other Identification Certificates were provided to them based on our liaising with the government offices. 

Project Proposal: 

There are still various challenges that we face as an organization while we address their needs. The villages are situated deep in the jungles and commuting to these places have always been a great challenge. Human-animal conflicts are on the rise, making these places very dangerous for our staff members. The makeshift structures that we have been using as ECDC shelters have been damaged very badly due to extreme weather conditions and elephant attacks. Increasing prices have limited our operations to a great extent. With the pandemic the situation has further deteriorated. In order to keep the program live and running we are in immediate need to pump in more resources. We are additionally planning for semi-permanent structures that could best endure harsh weather and elephant attacks. We are in need of basic amenities to make the ECDCs more self-sufficient. The little children need good mattresses to sleep during their sleep time, better play things that can improve their mental/physical health, better storage spaces, writing/drawing materials, first aid materials, plates, cups/saucers, clothes, display materials etc