Introduction

The perspective of the Culture & People Group is to strengthen culture and traditions especially when indigenous people are unable to continue them. There is a growing awareness among our people on the need for keeping the traditions. Nowadays, most folks think only of their economic status while some are migrating to other places, this leads to a breakdown of the governance and village customs. Many have lost their traditional land and turned to wage work for a living. The Culture & People programme is involved in various activities such as restoration of sacred groves, conducting population surveys, documentation and conducting festivals, meetings, awareness camps. The programme also provides specific support for health, education and accessing government schemes.

The group aims to strengthen the conservation oriented lifestyle of the indigenous groups and help them to reclaim their rights over the forests; to establish the identity of each community and instill pride in their vibrant culture; ensure that indigenous communities develop abilities to deal with the modern world.

Small Steps

Keystone’s new Programme area of Institutional Development & Local Governance, is progressing at the conceptual level & with a concept note on institutions, including both Keystone and village level institutions. Some initial discussions have been done with village groups to judge their initial reactions. A local group of Adivasis youth formed a group called `Ajile Bottu’. Several meetings were held with the people to highlight issues regarding local governance, which will take time to conclude. The concept of building sustainable institutions in the future includes options of producer groups, private companies/section 25A Company & with in built systems of welfare and social equity for Adivasis, especially women. This seems like a big challenge for the future for us to implement. Nevertheless, the germ of cultural revival is an issue that has taken deep roots within the organisation. Our Adivasi staff members brought into view their deep interest in the adivasi culture. A number of activities have taken place this year which will definitely influence our approach towards villagers and their attitude for us.

The main initiatives include studying traditional organizations amongst indigenous hill communities. Initiating through a participatory process, the establishment of village institutions which will manage, handle and spin-off future activities at the following levels:
Producer Groups – village production units value-adding natural resources through training and enterprise development
Farmer Groups – forest communities that traditionally collect NTFPs and are diversifying into land based activities of high value spices, and food crops
Traditional indigenous institutions – cultural activities or gathering territories, ancestral domains which bind forest communities together
Understand both the historical aspects and the present context and trends to arrive at contemporary, relevant forward-looking institutional models.

Conservation Award & Seemai Hubba

Keystone organized a Conservation Village Award and Seemai Hubba (Festival on Ancestral Domains) on 24th and 25th June 2010. Indigenous communities from places like Kotagiri, Coonoor, Sigur, Pillur, Hasanur, Punanjanur and Nilambur participated. The purpose, as seen from the title above, was 2 fold -firstly, to get communities to start thinking and acting on conservation issues in their own areas and secondly, to discuss and debate on issues relating to ancestral domains. (more…)