Intel effort makes girl education a reality among Toda tribe in South India
The mountains of Nilgiri crowns South India with splashes of blue nurturing the Toda tribe. This tribe rarely peeks out to the world nor do they entertain any external interference. This may be one of the reasons for their social or economic backwardness. Primarily pastoral, the tribe’s main source of livelihood is buffalo herding.
The high rate of illiteracy was one of the key issues restraining the community’s overall development. It eventually led to many social evils such as child marriage that is rampant in this tribe.
Responding to this, Intel® Teach took up the challenge of educating the children of the tribe. Besides equipping the Toda community children with the 21st century skills such as information literacy, creativity and critical thinking, Intel played a pivotal role in fostering girl child education and eliminating child marriages from the community.
Intel®Teach paves the way for Toda empowerment
The person who gave shape to Intel’s vision of spreading literacy among the Toda children was B Sharada Mani. She has been teaching in the Panchayat Union Middle School in Nilgiris district for the past six years.
As a teacher, she was drawn towards the plight of Toda girls. Well aware of the social evils prevailing in the region, she felt that the girl children of Toda community not only required education but a way to escape their looming fate.
It was Intel® Teach that provided her with the opportunity to help address the concern. Using Project Based Learning Method (PBL), she involved her students in doing research on social evils like illiteracy vis–à–vis child marriage. It exposed the students to the 21st century skills while working on a project that involved a local issue.
The girls were initially shying away to be part of the project; they gradually opened up and spoke about their miseries. The boys had stepped in as they also did not want child marriage to hamper their community’s progress.
Students led the effort amidst numerous challenges
A section of the community was averse to the proposal of girl education after a certain age as it interfered with their custom of child marriage. To address the concern, the students reached out to the villagers and made them aware about the vices of child marriages. They had painstakingly showed them the information they had collected through their research.
The students even did not loose their hopes when a few villagers destroyed their posters. They rallied relentlessly and were able to convince them as many of them were victims of child marriages and did not want the future generation to have the same ill–fate.
The project saw success when one such child marriage was stopped by angry protests outside of the temple. The community head was impressed by the efforts and said "the pupil’s force of creating awareness using the PBL would pave way for better tomorrow". As recognition of the school project, he donated a piece of land to be used as school playground.
"At the beginning of the project, I didn’t imagine that it would have such a huge impact on the community. My intention was to involve the students using the PBL method and create awareness on the social evils. But now, I am happy for having accomplished this with the help of my own students for the Toda community," says Sharada.
The Principal of the school applauded the project and said, "this program has helped to identify the hidden skills and talents of these students".
The Toda tribe was living in the dark ages and had not realized the need to educate girls. Intel® Teach led the social transformation enabling education for girl children in the Toda community. The tide finally seems to be turning towards empowering the lives of Toda.
