TEZ DHAR JI PUKAAR

Background

The implementation of multipurpose project has often raised a lot of eye brows primarily on the grounds of inappropriate way of land acquisition. Forcefully acquiring land from communities and deserting the communities into infertile, hostile terrain has been a common phenomenon. This inhumane and insensitive approach has been adversely affecting the identity of the communities and their folklore (which includes traditional music, regional food, folk medicine, children folklore, traditional sayings, proverbs, rhymes and jingles) are on the verge of extinction.
The story of Dharaji- also popularly known as “ Tez Dhar” has been no different. It is a cluster of villages located in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh. The villagers have witnessed trauma and pain on the eve of Bhutia Amavasya – a day of festivity in the region in which thousand of devotes would worship the purity of Narmada Mai on the banks of the Narmada River. On this auspicious day itself thousand of devotes were drowned in the river owing to the sudden discharge of the water from the Indira Sagar Dam without any prior notice.
The incident seemed to have had a significant impact on the community and it is quite possible a number of stories with the community and the river have also drowned with the people. The villages are under submergence and another casualty will essentially mean extinction of the folklore which are an essential towards the identity of the communities.

Volunteering is the powerful tool and its has the power of making the impossible, possible. It has two fold benefits. First is that is allows individuals to push their own boundaries and learn from challenges, experiences in an experiential manner. Secondly it allows the opportunities to benefit the communities. In this very perspective we are initiating Tez Dhar ki Pukaar – Ek Anokhi Koshish. One of the key focus areas of the intervention will be to focus on the traditional methods of the community and make attempts to preserve it in some form through documentation.

Introduction

The project seeks to document the stories associated with the communities of Dharaji and also bring forward some of the stories/ epics associated with the Narmada River. One of the focus areas of the project will be to document the folkore of the region and disseminate it in form of a publication. The dissemination will not be confined to one publication and attempts will be to share the story of Dharaji with other organisation / movements working in the area of Tribal Rights, Land Alienation, Human Rights, etc.

One of the challenges of the project is that it does not have any funding. Thus the volunteers will be required to take care of the following cost

 Boarding and lodging expenses during the tenure of the engagement
 Traveling expenses (Inward and outward)
 Funds for action projects(If required)

Objectives

 To document and disseminate
 The oral literature of folklore comprising of folk tales, folk epics of the community
 The performance oriented folklore of the community comprising of Folk songs, Folk dance etc
 To use volunteering as an effective means of implementing action projects in the Dharaji in the thematic areas of Education, Art and Culture, Environment, Health etc
 To use volunteering as an means of enhancing the capacities of volunteers as well as the community
 Disseminate case studies and stories of the projected affected people with organizations, individuals with the big picture of engaging them with the issue

Methodology

Adoloscent story telling club
The modern education system has laid greater stress on the written text than the oral text. An adoloscent story tellng club will be established to inclulcate the habit of storytelling in the community and the key focus area of the club will be to share stries of the community. The expected benefit of the activity will be twofold. One will be to document the stories shared and the other will be to use story telling as an skill to work on the capacities of the Children in specific skills such as listening, documenting etc.

Key Information Interview

Personal interviews will be undertaken to document the oral literature of the community. Ertain key personnel from the community will be identified and interviewed. The expected outcome will be to document the folk tales stories, folk epics. Lyrics of the folk songs( along with its meaning) of the community and also understanding the interlink ages of the stories with the identity of the community.

Audio – Visual documentation
Subject to the funds available under the project the audio visuals of the performances such as folk songs. Folk dance will be captured

Focussed group discussion:

Focused group discussion is an important tool to understand the perception, attitudes and practices of the population. These methodologies will be used to document the religious and social practices, customs, rituals, and festivals of the community along with its rationales

Communication to the outside world

The information collected will be simultaneously shared with the outside world in form of snail mails, emails. Social networking etc. A core group of organization / people with whom the documentation will be shared and follow up communication will be made in order to identify a possible scope of engaging with the issue.

What is in it for me

The opportunities for volunteering are plenty but there are challenges with which you will be expected to deal with. Firstly you will have to take ownership of your own learning , responsibility of your health and belonging and take care of your own expenses(boarding and lodging, food etc). Secondly the nature of volunteering will be challenging and you will be expected to adapt to the conditions and situations. The opportunities available are as under

Documentation
“If you are passionate about capturing the stories of a community using your own skills ... this is for you “
Professionals who have a keen interest in documenting the stories of the community and enabling the community to retain its identity. You may wish to choose the form of documentation. It can be audio /visual/text. However the following things have to bear in mind
 Need to spend at least 5 days understanding the community / issue
 Take care of sensitivities. For instance taking permission while clicking the pictures, not forcing anyone to be clicked.
 Interaction with the Community should be in form of conversations rather than an interview or a questionnaire
 Restrain from making any false promises or commitments to the community


Facilitation

“ If you have the passion to facilitate a meaningful intervention for your own learning and towards the development of the community ... this is for you”

 Need to spend at least 5 days understanding the community / issue
 Facilitate processes of Adolescent or moderate the focus group discussions

Sharing skills

“If you have the skills we have the opportunity”

 Need to spend at least 7 days understanding the community / issue
 An important aspect of sharing skills will be to learn a new skill from the community. It can anything cooking, farming, dance, songs etc.... we sure are missing out on something.... find it out
 The other aspect of the intervention will be to share the skills with the community. As far as possible it should be ensured that skills should be less dependent on equipments, materials etc. However this is not a non negotiable

Events

Group volunteering program

 A 30 day volunteering program
 An opportunity to understand the community, live with them, implement an action project as a group
 The action project will comprise of three non negotiables
- Creating an intangible asset for the community
- Involving the community
- Ensuring a sustainable intervention and at the end of the tenure handing over the responsibility of following on the project to a person from the community