16-March-2024

Tribal Women Come Together to Share Dreams, Aspirations, and Life’s Lessons at Jungle Rani’s Bichar Charcha Forum

I was young and couldn’t read a word since I have never been to school. How could I go even when there was no school? My parents got me married at the age of 15, and I came to live in a new place. My husband used to travel to far-off places, and I had to manage the house on my own with no idea about anything. How to manage money, how to buy things from the market, and how to take money from the vendor who was taking Mohua seed or rice from my farm. It was quite a struggle for me. It was then that I decided that if I have a daughter, I’ll send her to school for a good education so that they should not become me and go through the same struggle I had to go through."

These words shared by Sambari Sisa, a Bonda tribal women leader, resonated with hundreds of women who had gathered at the ‘Bichar Kendra’, organised by Maha Gram Sabha (Kalimela), a community-based organisation comprising local forest communities in Odisha's Malkangiri District. Volunteers from Jungle Rani and Bado Didi Union, along with the members of the IoFE team, organised the ‘Bichar Kendra'—a forum for women from the forest communities to gather and share their life experiences and aspirations.

Taking the opportunity, members of the IoFE team and Gram Sabha Jakalkundi, Kalimela, highlighted the importance of the industrial marketing of forest products through the establishment of a Jungle Producer Company (PC) and securing tenure. They also shared examples of PC and its functioning in promoting women's livelihood.

‘Bichar Kendra’ became a reality after volunteers conducted dozens of meetings, meticulously planning for weeks through discussions with women members with the common goal of providing a platform for women to come together and share experiences.

For the first time, 200 women from 20 different villages belonging to various Adivasi groups like Bonda, Koya, and Desia, who face barriers in accessing even primary institutional facilities such as healthcare, education, etc., came together to discuss their rights to the forest, livelihood, their aspirations for their children's education, and actions they could take to battle institutional or domestic violence.