Individual Report – Venkatasubramanian.T

Introduction:

Vallaramkunnu is a tribal village located at Wayanad, Kerala where three

tribal colonies were adopted by Amma. They are Paniya colony, Kattupara nayakar colony,

Kuruchur colony comprising of 75 families. Our LILA started with meeting the villagers along

with Village agriculture officer, Mr Mamooty who gave a detailed talk about organic farming,

ill effects of using fertilizers on plants and how to use organic manure to create an awareness

on healthy agricultural farming. Our coordinator, Mr.Hari lead us up the hill which was an

hour trek up the hill to the colonies. We also studied about the resources available in the

village to build Tribes Economy.

Problem identification:

Tribes have no self-motivation.

Children are not serious about their studies

Distillation process of lemongrass requires firewood as raw material which is very

expensive.

The tribes do not have any permanent job and hence they are jobless during some

days.

Alcohol and tobacco consumption is seen among Tribes.

Alcohol is easily available through auto drivers.

Firewood are not allowed to take from forest, since it is not permitted by

government.

Tribal people in the village don’t know how to build up their economy.

There is no medical facilities nearby if any serious problems happens.

Tribes in kattunayake has coffee plans in each and every house, but they don’t

know how to market it.

About Coordinator:

We had a nice coordinator Mr.Hari at Wayanad. He and his wife are taking care of all

the tribal children. Children are motivated to study with the effort from Hari’s Wife. Our

coordinator is highly dedicated in helping tribal people to build their economy. He took all the

tribal people in the village to Amritapuri on 25th September to seek AMMA blessings with

motivation of showing tribal people how outside world is. This may create some change or

motivation about how to build their fortune. Hari sir is taking much care about Tribal children

than his daughter.

Course learning:

LILA is a great project that gives lively experience about how to build the economy of

Tribes in the village. Wayanad gave us a great experience about the tribal life. We were able

to identify the core problem behind in order to build them. Alcohol and tobacco awareness

was also one among the learning from this course. Lemongrass is the major source of resource

available. In addition Ginger, Banana are planted in the side of hills by normal people. LILA

gives us great information about the livelihood of Tribals which I haven’t seen anywhere, so

when there is a problem, there will be a solution for it.We are planning to implement various

steps such as constructing hub in order to build tribal fortune.

Perception about village:

Before visiting the village I had some perception about tribal such as they will bring

honey, green leafy vegetables from forest and sell here in the market.

But after visiting the village I can understand how they are living without knowing

about outside world.

Tribes using tobacco without knowing the dangerous effects.

Can understand about the problems they are facing.

Children has no motivation towards their studies.

Lemon grass oil distillation Cochin:-

Extracting oil from bottom of drum

Lemon grass available in the hill top Lemon grass harvesting

Dumping lemon grass in to the drum

Lemon grass distillation unit

Lemon grass oil distillation in the village:-

In the village a private distillation unit being constructed is shown in the above picture.

They are following the same construction unit as followed in the Cochin. It involves two drums

connected by an airtight pipes. One drum is used to dump the lemon grass with water and

firewood is placed at the bottom. When firewood burns lemon grass vapour moves to another

drum used to condense the vapour to oil. Then oil is extracted from the bottom of drum. Here

major problem is firewood availability, since it is expensive and government banned to take

firewood from forest. So solutions need to be implemented to tackle this problem. Our

coordinator suggested a solution of providing cattle for some tribal people to give them job,

so that their economy would build.

Thanks:

I would like to thank Deepak Sir and Hema Ma’am for their knowledge transfer, support and

care during the LILA journey which made our journey good and very safe. Also would like to

mention the immense careness shown to us by our house owners where we stayed

(Mr. Karunakaran Sir and Mrs. Ranjini). Finally, I would like to thank our coordinator Hari.

Thank You,

Venkatasubramanian.T