The impending post pandemic threats to tribal communities

The pandemic is running into its third year, having killed over a million people worldwide. While the more industrial nations have some sort of ethnomethodological practices in place, India lacks both trustworthy data source as well the ability to implement any meaningful decisions based out of that.

As such, we depend mostly on what we hear & what we see on the ground. While the Government along with various trusted non-profit organizations have been able to curb the spread of the pandemic in many of these fragile communities, the future looks extremely bleak by any means.

Vaccination hesitancy, non-availability of basic supplies, unusual lifestyles & in many cases the remoteness of their communities have been the major challenges faced by the volunteers to get them the proper protection.

Although the tribal communities constitute less than 10% of the population, its critical for this generation to acknowledge their merits & the values of their cultures & heritages before we lose them completely. According to the Anthropological Survey of India, India is home to 461 communities, of which 174 are identified as sub-groups, in 212 tribes.

If its not the pandemic, it will be hunger!

It almost seems that the situation is going to get worse with the spread of Omicron. Numerous tribal families are abandoning their heritage & community, driven by hunger, while the fear of Covid is barely well understood by them. For the past 2 years they have been braving the pandemic with the optimism that the virus would be contained in some way, however, they are slowly becoming aware of the perilous days ahead – without food, without livelihood & without much hope.

The tribal children will be the most adversely affected. While we are foreseeing their parents having to travel long distances & possibly out of state, soliciting work, their earnings will never be enough to take care of their children’s health, education or nutrition.

Jay Shakuntala Welfare Foundation is doing its small part to assist, but with government funding almost reduced to none, with almost all avenues of sourcing either donations or manpower withering away fast, we might be reduced to running small free-kitchens in only a small handful of communities.

In our plans to start small community libraries for ethnic children, we are pondering the options of providing some sort of a nutritious meal to the kids & possibly to their families. There are a few local residents who are coming forward to volunteer with us, however, this plan has several roadblocks ahead, the biggest one being the community lock downs, where some of these delicate communities are often cut off from external contacts for weeks & months together, with very strict rules of contacting the tribals living there.

The light at the end of the tunnel

The Covid-19 Tribal Resource Center has extensive plans to assist the tribal communities in many ways. Some of them are likely to provide momentary relief. And like always, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Hundreds of successful professionals have jumped into social work at this hour of need from cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Nasik, Pune, Delhi, Chennai etc. Many are focused on education & literacy, looking at the months & years ahead, while many are hands & feet into solving the current pandemic situations.

There are tremendous exciting news of providing funds & working hand in hand with social workers at the grass roots to deliver vaccines and medical help to remote tribal communities come in almost every day.

Like in any generation, while many of us are still nonchalant of these miseries & hardships, many more have shown the good intent of helping in whatever way they can. We are proud to be associated with some such professionals.

You can help!

This might be a good time to join the fight against the pandemic and further education & literacy. You can help in numerous ways. If you would wish to join our team of volunteers or donors for one of our programs, send us an email [ at exploreindia.tv.team (at) gmail.com ] & we will get in touch with details.