Introduction:
The Pazhassi Raja Tribal School, located in the Wayanad
district of Kerala, has been in existence since 1997. Wayanad has the highest
population of tribals in Kerala. The tribals live in the forest and lead a very
primitive life and they have had no access to education any time in their life.
Dr. Appanu Nambiar, a retired professor from Calicut University, started this
school with the aim of uplifting the lives of these tribal people. This project
has grown leaps and bounds ever since. The school that started with 41 students
has a current strength of more than 300 students now.
I know Dr.Nambiar through his son, Biju Odayammatath. Biju
and me are good friends from our engineering college days.
Getting there
Ever since I heard about the school from Dr.Nambiar (whom I
call uncle), I had the desire to visit the school. So this time, before I left
to India from US, I called uncle and conveyed my desire to visit the school and
fixed the approximate date of the trip.
We (myself, my wife and my parents) left for the school from Kozhikode on Jan 2nd early morning. The school is located about 17 miles before a town called Mananthavadi. As we got closer to the school we could see the terrain changing from plains to hilly forests. We stopped on the way to take few pictures of the lush green scenery on the offer. After almost three and half-hours of drive, we reached the school.
I had heard and read about the school long back and had no clue how the school would look like now. I was still in the expectation of a small building in the middle of the forest. The road connecting the school to the main road was narrow and unpaved and offered us a chance for some bumpy riding. And suddenly out of nowhere there stood two well-constructed buildings. This was a really surprising sight.
Meeting
uncle
Uncle was waiting for us in the school. He welcomed us
heartily. I have met and interacted with uncle few times before and his
simplicity always humbles me. For the last 7 years he has toiled selflessly to
develop this school into its current state. The school that started off with 41
children has about 311 children now. 179 boys and 132 girls. All of them living
in the school, eating healthy food and getting good quality education -
something that they could have never dreamt of few years ago. This is amazing
social transformation in action. Yet, in spite of all these achievements uncle
remains as humble as I have ever known him.
Uncle
was born and brought up in a poor agrarian family in a remote village in Kannur
district. His parents were illiterate. He had to walk 6 miles a day to attend
the high school. He started working as a primary school teacher. During that
time he studied privately up to the PhD level. Later on he went on to become
high school, college and university teacher. While he was working as a professor
in Calicut University he was appointed to start a University teacher education
center in Wayanad. At that time he came in contact with the tribals and decided
to do something for the tribal children. His own struggles during his childhood
for getting education inspired him to get fully involved in the education arena.
After he retired from his job, he came back to Wayanad and started the school.
Social
condition in the area and the history of the school
Uncle described the work that has happened in this area during last 7 years. He told us that, even among the tribals there is a very obvious caste system. Initially, the parents who belong to the so called higher castes did not like to send their children to this school as lower caste children were also attending the same school. This situation has improved a lot now with caste barriers beginning to break-up. These tribals did not even know about education until this school started. It took him a lot of effort to convince the parents to send their children to the school. Initially the school started off as a day school. Later he found that the number of children kept reducing because the parents didn�t send their children back to school. Then he decided to make the school completely residential. Last year they enrolled 502 students at the beginning. But at the end of the academic year in March there were only 402 students left, as they did not fetch the dropouts for want of funds.
The non-tribal people own large amount of land in this area.
Farming is their main means of livelihood with coffee and pepper being the main
crops. They employ these tribals to work in their farms and pay them a pittance
at the end of the day as their wages. The tribals would then spend all their
daily earnings on either food or alcohol. During good times they will live
merrily, but during bad times it would be a case of abject poverty and sickness.
They did not know anything about their rights for a decent wage nor did they
know anything about saving money and using it properly when required. Uncle told
us that he has noticed a lot of social awakening happening among the tribals
already. The unfortunate part is that many local non-tribal people do not like
the tribal children to get educated because they won�t be able to exploit them
anymore. There was one incident in which some miscreants set fire to one of the
school buildings. It was done in the middle of the night and the teachers and
the students had to work 2 hours to put down the fire. I really have to
appreciate uncle�s courage and determination to work in such a community for
uplifting the lives of the most downtrodden people. He had to fight against many
odds, among which I only mentioned a few above.
School
facilities and children�s activities
Uncle gave us a guided tour of the entire school. The first
part of our tour was to the boy�s hostel. We saw neatly arranged rows of beds
and iron trunks in the room. Uncle told us that every year the school gives free
uniform, bed and all the other necessary day-to-day items to the children for
free. From the roof of the boy�s hostel we could get a bird�s eye view of
the entire area. Mountains on three sides surround the school. We could also see
a large playground, paddy fields and vegetable gardens.
When the school started there was no road, electricity or telephone in that area. All of these came due to the efforts of the school. The school gets its water from the mountain streams. One really �cool� thing we saw was that, on the roof of these school buildings they have solar panels to capture the large amount of sunlight that they get in this area. Due to the remoteness of this place, the electric supply from the grid is not regular. During times of power-cut, they use the stored solar energy for their power supply. After our sojourn on the top of the roof, we went to the kitchen area. The food that the children used to eat at their home was very un-healthy. Now all the children live in the school and they are fed nutritious food 3 times a day. Uncle showed us the innovative steam cooking system that they have in their kitchen. It was donated by a non-profit organization called IDRF (Boston chapter). Though it is huge equipment, it is lot more energy-efficient than the regular cooking methods (especially when cooking food for more than 300 children 3 times a day).
From the kitchen, we went out into the field. We saw a big
heap of paddy there. Uncle explained to us that the children had harvested the
paddy themselves the day before our visit. Apart from their regular academic
curriculum he stresses that these children should get vocational training in
things like farming, carpentry etc. The school grows paddy, coffee, tea,
cardamom, plantain and many vegetables like tomatoes, tapioca, peas, eggplant,
okra etc. Lot of vegetables that they use in the kitchen comes from their garden
itself. He told us that occasionally some �strangers� visit their farm and
destroy their plantain crops. These strangers are none but herds of elephants
from the surrounding forests. The largest group that he has seen is about 30
elephants. Usually when such crop invasion happens the tribals have their method
of driving these elephants away using drums.
The children participate very actively in sports also. One of the teachers at the school is a former Kerala state women�s hockey team player. She has created a good hockey team in the school. The archery competitions that they conduct in the school create lot of interest among the children.
Meeting
the children
Then we went to the classrooms to interact with the children.
We were all looking forward to this. Unfortunately, the day we went to the
school only 8th, 9th and 10th grade children
had classes. The rest of the students were still on Christmas vacation. We
really rued our bad luck of not being able to meet the younger ones in the
school. This year marks the first time in which the school will see students
writing the SSLC (10th grade) exam. We took several photos with the
children and gave them some pep talk also. Two girls from 9th
standard class, Bavitha and Valsala, sang two beautiful songs for us. That
showed us that these children have lot of talent in them. We also visited the
science laboratory and the carpentry room.
Now it was time for the lunch. The children sang a Sanskrit
prayer before eating the lunch and then ate the lunch in silence. During this
time, we distributed the sweets and fruits that we had brought. We also ate
lunch along with the children and the teachers. After lunch the children cleaned
the place themselves.
Vision
for the future: More children and a hospital
While the children got back to their hostel after lunch,
uncle took us to the back of the main school building. There he showed us
another 2-storeyed school building that was constructed entirely with the help
of an NGO called ASHA (Stanford and Silicon Valley chapters). Few NGOs have been
supporting the school in the last few years. Most of the construction work was
possible only because of their generous help. Recently, he managed to get daily
allowance for the children from the Central Government of India. However they
have sanctioned for only 207 students, while
the total number of children is much more. This puts an enormous burden on his
shoulders to raise the rest of the amount every year. He told us that, there are
hundreds of tribal children in that area who are yet to start their education.
It is only due to the lack of funds that he is not making efforts to get more
children. In fact, he also told us that there is a real possibility that he may
have to �let go� of the children from 9th and 10th
grades next year (68 children). He quoted two reasons. One is severe lack of
funds and second is apathy from the Government to give recognition to the 9th
& 10th grades even after his constant efforts. If this does
happen, then it would be a very sad day. He has carefully nurtured these
children over the last five to seven years. I could see the pain in his eyes
when he told us that. He knows that this school is the only hope that is there
for these children and if he doesn�t get these children in now, they will
never attend any school in their life.
He also told us that there are no hospitals or medical
clinics anywhere close-by. So he has felt a great need for a hospital in that
area. Right now he is busy making plans for the construction of a hospital. But
if this hospital is going to become a reality, then he needs support from some
large donors. Uncle�s love and affection towards these people and his desire
to serve them really inspired me.
The
nearby forest
Now Uncle took us out of the school to give us a taste of the nearby forest. First we went to one of the tribal�s house. It was a very small hut. The bow and arrow lying outside the house attracted our immediate attention. We all tried our hands on shooting some arrows but the strings were tied so tight that we could hardly pull the strings back and keep the arrow on it, let alone take the aim and shoot. The girl who lived in that house (who is also a 10th grade student in the school) told us that they hunt birds and other animals with this bow and arrow and eat them as their food. After spending sometime in that house, we ventured inside the forests for a little while.
Saying
goodbye
We came back to the school and spent some more time with the
children. During all this time we could see the love and respect that these
children have towards uncle. They call him �Guruji�. They know that if they
have the slightest of the problem, �Guruji� will take care of it promptly.
When I asked one boy what he wanted to become in future, his answer was that he
wants to become a teacher. He wants to come back and educate other children in
his community. It was such a matured answer coming from a little boy. The
children also had many questions for us regarding our life in United States.
Finally the day was over and it was time for us to say
goodbye to everyone. It was one of the most inspiring days in my life. The
innocent, smiling faces of the children with a huge thirst for knowledge in them
will remain etched in my mind forever. We came back from the school with the
determination that we want to do something for them, even if it is little. We
thanked God for giving us the wonderful opportunity to meet �Guruji� and his
beautiful children.
Saril Kumar
sarilkvp@gmail.com