Uthnau has lost its earliest staff member Mr. Habil Seik, recently. We express our deep condolences.

Uthnau: 2016-2017 Effort to deliver quality education for Mouj-orah students, especially in English language and

mathematics.

Providing support for two boy students studying in boarding school; one girl student studying in a city school hosted by Uthanu chief functionary; and arranging new admission for a girl student in a small town boarding school for better education. The girl was transferred from a city base day school close to Mr. Arnab Sen’s residence, who had put up the girl at his home for the last eight months

Organising professional skill enhancement training for Santali youths, especially for girls and women.

Marketing processed food items, spices, and crafts prepared by the Santhal women’s Self Help Groups under supervision of Gogo-Gaonta.

Teachers and Uthnau members are being invited as resource persons for various skill enhancement training programmes.

Bio-diversity and nature conservation in the entire lateritic terrain of Western part of Bengal and Eastern part of Jharkhand.

Running the existing evening coaching center for adolescent students, especially for the girls from class VI to IX.

Encouraging Judicial watch from National Green Tribunal over the operations and expansion of the illegal stone mines by mobilizing Santal Self-Rule body.

 

Appraisal of the present situation and assessment of the need

a) Total enrolment of students in the Mawj-orah day care center has been 48 (25 girls and 23 boys) and the enrolment of students in the evening tutorial center has been 12 (7 boys and 5 girls). Uthnau’s English teacher Rocky Das is being guided by Ms. Ruby. Time to time the guidance by Ms. Ruby has been beneficial to Uthnau’s

English teacher on the activity-oriented and interactive-based English learning course.

Mouj-orah Picnic February 2017

To evaluate communication skills in the English language – speaking, reading and writing – and to acknowledge the achievements of the students, Uthnau has started offering a certificate for the English language after the clearance of exams every alternate four month for each part. This course is divided into six parts based on different levels of skills ranging from basic conversation to reading newspapers and writing personal experiences in English. A Kolkata based language teaching institution named ‘Atulya Ghosh Institute of Languages’ used to send their English teacher twice a week. Their teacher evaluates elder students’ skills with the help of Uthnau’s English teacher and as per the evaluation report, A.G. Institute of Languages issues certificates for different levels. So far, within the period of four months (October 2016 – February 2017), Mauj-orah’s 5 senior students (4 girls and 1 boy) out of 12 (8 girls, 4 boys) have got Part I certificates.

b) Mr. Uday Biswas, a Mathematics teacher involved with ‘Science Communicators Forum’ has started visiting Uthnau’s school every alternate week to guide the Mauj-orah teacher about how to introduce mathematics with fun and activities. His innovative techniques of teaching mathematics and steps to upgrade students into higher levels of mathematics lessons have been an essential part of our mathematics syllabus for the all levels of students of Mouj-orah. The toddlers, who come and play in Mouj-orah, have learned counting from the games with their fingers.

c) Mr Arnab Sen, one of the friends of Uthnau, took Bijuli Soren to his city based home for arranging her admission in class VI during mid-term, sometime in the month of August in a south Kolkata based Bengali medium high school. But even after eight month Bijuli was not able to acclimatize with her fellow classmates as well as with the teachers. This resulted in lack of concentration in learning. Finally, in the month of February, this year, Arnab transferred Bijuli from ‘Garia Bina BalikaVidyalaya’ to a girl’s boarding school called ‘Satyabharati Institution for Girls’ in Hooghly district. She was admitted to class V by the board members of the institution after an

evaluation of Bijuli’s level of understanding in Bengali and English languages, Mathematics and Geography.

d) In total 15 girls and 1 boy is taking Tang-su-do Martial art training. All the 16 trainees got registered under International Association of Tang-Soo-Do. Two young Black belt masters, Debasish Rakhit and Rina Mistri from Rishra Town visit Mouj-orah twice a week and give intensive training. These two masters share their understanding about the philosophy of Tang-Soo-Do with the trainees. Mouch-orah teachers follow this training and help trainees to practice this martial art three days a week. The students have picked tang-soo-do much faster than expected. The trainers ensured Black belts for at least 8 trainee girls within the period of one and half years. Understanding the urgency in learning self-defense and the necessity for a livelihood income after achieving the Black-belt certificate, all the adolescent Santal girls in and around Garia village are interested to register their names in this certificate course of Martial arts. Unfortunately, due to limitation of funds, Uthnau was not able to sponsor registration for all the girls of Garia and surrounding villages at a time. But, Uthnau wants to see the change. Recently, Ms. Divya from Princeton, USA has shown interest to organize sponsorships for the Santal girls’ martial art training. Therefore, the upcoming fund request to Asha for Education from Uthnau has excluded the estimated expenses for the martial art training and registration charges for its certification process.

e)       Most trainees of the martial arts classes and students of evening coaching center are getting involved in theatre activities. A continuous process of theatre workshops conducted by Bapi Mallick every month all through year helps Mouj-orah students, existing and Mouj-orah alumni to perform theatre during the festivals of Santal villages. The theme and stories of the theatres reflects the environment and cultural issues such as the effects of deforestation, reasons behind the water crisis in villages, results of cultural defeatism in Santhal community, etc.

f)       Mohon’s evening coaching center encourages Mouj-orah alumni to continue studying in local high schools. This year, all three Secondary Exam pass out students out of total 8 candidates (two girls and one boy) from village Garia are Mouj-orah alumni and two among them took tutorial support from Mohon’s evening coaching center till the Secondary final.

g)    ‘Gogo-Gaonta’ – the forum of Santhali mothers, who have been the de-facto custodian of the Santhal villages and community, keeps eight SHGs under their supervisions and support. This year, the SHGs have been able to earn a Rs 1,77,720 in total through Uthnau’s sale counters in different national food and craft fairs. The revenue came from the sale of crafts such as traditional needle-work, grass and seed ornaments, etc. and organically cultivated as well as chemical preservative free processed food items like Rosella Jam, Mustered oil, Aromatic rice, puffed rice, red rice, wild honey, turmeric powder, chili powder, etc. Uthanu appreciates the contribution of Mr. Arnab Sen for his guidance on marketing and branding indigenous products.

Theme of the Fair: Women of India, DilliHaat, April, 2016

Satvik Food Festival, Ahmadabad, December 2016

KrishiMela, Baguihati, Kolkata, February, 2017& B2B Meeting on Processed Food, Netaji Indor Stadium, Kolkata, March, 2017

   h) Uthanu, as a part of its non-biodegradable solid waste management, was able to develop rope made of multi-layered waste materials, with items that were found completely useless and not

recyclable. Sadi Hansda developed beautiful craft items such as baskets from ropes by using the traditional basket-making method. After knowing this story about managing a non-recyclable waste in such a method, a USA-based Professor Dr. Anindyo Roy of Colby College invited Mouj-orah teacher Sadi Hansda, Mon khushi Lohar, a GogoGaonta member and the chief functionary of Uthnau to give training to the community leaders of Darjeeling hill communities and local school teachers. Dr Roy organized volunteer support to carry out this training through his American students’ group.

i) Uthnau supported the leaders of the Santhal Self-rule body to file a case at the National Green Tribunal against the illegal and environment damaging

activities of stone mines in Birbhum and Dumka district of Jharkhand. Going through a prolonged process of hearing, finally the tribunal has issued an order of closure to stone mines who do not have Environment clearance certificates and permission letters to operate from the state and National Pollution Control Boards. On the basis of the order the local administration had to close down more than 99% of the stone mines, because, it was found that only 5 mines out of 200 stone mines had permissions from the Ministry of Environment. At present, stone mine owners with the help of some people in the local administration have been able to find ways to operate stone mines illegally, once again. In this connection, a pressure group from the Santhal Self-rule body is preparing a protest movement against the local administration for not complying with the court order and for giving wrong information to NGT.

j) Uthnau got monetary support from GGF (Global Greengrant Fund) to conserve indigenous gene pools of vegetables, maize, millets, cotton plants, uncultivated foods and wild grasses in the lateritic terrain of the districts of Birbhum and Bankurain West Bengal and Dumka and Godda districts of Jharkhand. Uthnau has found two varieties of wild grass which are the main habitat of pests that attack paddy and vegetable plants. If farmers allow the grass to grow along with paddy and vegetable plants, the resident pests of the grass will not attack other plants or the paddy.

Grass Diversity

3.      Additional plan for the year 2017-18

 Infrastructure is urgently needed for training in food processing, craft making, etc. If we want to expand our areas of activities, we are forced to develop infrastructure vertically because of lack of space. At the same time, government permission for developing a

training unit for food processing requires a reinforced building with hundreds of other hygienic measures. For that, a concrete two-storied structure covering 900 sqft is needed. We would prefer a kitchen, store room, eating place and training center under a single roof. Staying arrangements for teachers and resource persons are also needed to assure basic safety and privacy.