Update on Emergency relief support to Pahariya Tribe community- JUNE 2020 UPDATE
Emergency Relief Work among the Pahariya community in Jharkhand
Introduction
The recent lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic has severely impacted the Pahariya community classified as a ‘Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group’ (PVTG) in the Godda District of Jharkhand. Most Pahariya villages are situated on remote hill tops and forested slopes where government welfare services seldom reach. Under normal circumstances, families would trade forest produce for cash to support household needs. However this was not possible due to the lockdown which extended for over 74 days starting on 25th of March, 2020. During this period many households reported very low stocks of food grain and almost no savings leading to a severe health and financial crisis. Additionally schools and anganwadi centres remained closed. School-going children did not have access to mid-day meals which were an important source of nutrition for them. Pregnant women, infants, single women and physically challenged persons within the community were particularly impacted.
With support from the Oak Foundation and in partnership with Sathee and Badlao Foundation, Traidcraft has been providing critical relief to the Pahariyas during this crisis in the form of dry rations (which included rice, pulses, puffed rice, salt, mustard oil and essential spices), milk powder for children and sanitisation kits (which included a hand-wash soap, a laundry soap, a sanitiser and mask). Besides this, another important area of work has been to build awareness about the pandemic in remote Pahariya villages. Our teams have been providing sessions on how to prevent the pandemic from spreading, by following simple hygiene routines, which are relevant to the local context. Thus far, relief support has been provided to 1231 vulnerable Pahariya households.
The following page contains photographs that document some of our efforts on the field.
The elderly have been particularly impacted by the lockdowns enforced to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
Our partners Sathee and Badlao Foundation provided awareness sessions on the pandemic, its impact and simple prevention techniques in the local language in remote Pahariya villages.
Beyond Critical Relief
Beyond providing immediate relief, this project engages with members within the community on two critical and interconnected themes. On the one hand, our preliminary study shows that while the Pahariyas grow a variety of indigenous crops such as several varieties of millets which are high in nutrition, the issue of malnutrition, particularly among women and children, remains rampant within the community. One reason for this is that several crops that are harvested are traded in exchange for money rather than consumed as food by Pahariya families. Ensuring the food sovereignty of the Pahariyas through community managed seed banks and strengthening their traditional climate friendly cropping systems that enhance the nutritional profile of the community are important interventions under the project.
Pahariya villages are usually situated on remote hiltops or forested slopes where government welfare seldom reaches.
On the other hand, findings from our study suggest that linking Pahariya farmer collectives with non-exploitative markets is crucial to ensuring they receive a fair price for their produce. Historically, indigenous communities have been exploited by petty traders who have paid very low prices for forest produce painstakingly harvested by highly
skilled and knowledgeable communities such as the Pahariyas. In this regard, assistance in direct marketing will be provided to members in farmer producer collectives formed under this project.
An important intervention under the project will be to reduce the distress sale of nutritious crops grown by the community to traders and encourage the consumption of these crops as food by Pahariya families. Similarly, efforts have also been made to regulate the role of traders within villages. By looking at the issue of food sovereignty alongside financial sovereignty this project aims to address two critical and interconnected issues faced by the Pahariyas.