Photo Story: Wall Art on Climate Change by Radio Kotagiri
January 28, 2023 By Manickam & Ranjani PrasadAdditional Prog. Coordinator (Radio Kotagiri) & Programme Coordinator (PNC) The important documentation work done by our independent initiative Radio Kotagiri highlights the role of locally based community media in raising awareness of important topics concerning the Nilgiris and highlighting community stories. Over the weekend, Radio Kotagiri facilitated this […]
Tribal Leadership Workshop on Local Government
January 27, 2023 By Jeyanthi R. – Add. Programme Coordinator, People & Nature Collectives A workshop on panchayat systems was held at the Keystone campus today, organised by the People & Nature Collectives team. Nandakumar, founder of Thannatchi, a civil society organisation specialising in matters of local governance in Chennai, along with his colleague Gokul […]
Meet the Climate Historians of the Nilgiris
January 10, 2023 By Bhavya George and Madeleine GefkeProgramme Coordinator & Oberlin Shansi Fellow – Climate Change The climate crisis has taken centre stage in the global discourse with rising temperatures, increased extreme weather events and other consequences faced across the world. However, the topic is dominated by complexities of climate science. There is no […]
Explorations into Local Community Histories
December 27, 2022 By Daniel Samraj and Ranjani Prasad (People & Nature Collectives team) The People and Nature Collectives team has had an exciting couple of months of explorations into community histories and people’s understandings of the past. Many of the activities for the month fostered renewed interest for the team into local stories of […]
Year Two of Leadership Training for Adivasis: Updates from Sigur
October 18, 2022 By People & Nature Collectives This time last year, Keystone’s PNC team began working with Haiyya Foundation on providing a space for changemakers to grow for people of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) in the Nilgiris. With the support of Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI), 10 members of the Toda, Kotha, Irula, […]
Foundation Segré and Keystone: A Partnership for the Nilgiris
October 10, 2022 By Habeeba Fatima and Chandrasekar DasTechnical Coordinator & Additional Programme Coordinator – Biodiversity One of our committed donors, Foundation Segré has been supporting our Biodiversity Conservation team in several of its project activities. Segré is based in France and driven by the mission to build partnerships across the world for the protection […]
The Coming Together of Community Foundations in the Nilgiris Hills
September 28, 2022 By Ranjani PrasadArchiving Consultant – People & Nature Collectives Keystone has been partnering with several Community Foundations in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve (NBR) for over five years, and these are currently being coordinated and facilitated by the People and Nature Collectives team. The Global Fund for Community Foundations is a worldwide network […]
Exploring Public Histories through Community Narratives: A researcher workshop and partners’ visit – June 2022
An ongoing project with the British Academy, titled ‘The Ownership of Public Histories’ or TOPHI for short, has supported indigenous groups who have been engaged in conversations and community research on community histories, traditional knowledge, documentation of traditional cultural expressions and building resources for aiding intergenerational knowledge transfer. A key component of the project has […]
Consultation on Community-based Knowledge Discourses in Nilambur
Earlier this month, on the 11th and 12th of May, a community consultation was organised by the People and Nature Collectives Nilambur team in association with Thoduve Community Foundation, an organisation run by the indigenous communities of Nilambur. Led by Syamjith Palakkayam, Suresh Pulimunda, Sumitra Pattakarimbu, Vyshanth Pookkottampadam and Babu Vaniyampuzha, our community-based researchers in […]
A Workshop on writing and storytelling for Community Journalists
The Nilgiri Seemai Suddhi team consists of representatives from 8 regions and 4 community groups who meet monthly to gather news and features, and publish a periodic community newsletter. In August, the team met in full strength after a long lockdown-induced hiatus. The team practiced writing and storytelling methods as a group, along with resource persons from the People and Nature Centre and Community Wellbeing teams. The workshop entailed immersive reflections on observational writing, reporting and storytelling about indigenous communities such as theirs in an effort towards impactful journalism. This photo story takes us through the journey of their 4-day August 2021 workshop
