ORISSA, India - Forty-three year-old Gorachand Murmu was an agricultural labourer, migrating to faraway places in search of work. Like all of his neighbours in this tribal village, he had no savings in the local bank.

Now, through an income-generation scheme developed as part of a three-year ILO project under INDISCO (see box), Mr. Murmu is enjoying a higher standard of living, and a new sense of self-esteem, social status and economic independence.

"I no longer need to leave my village and migrate to distant places in search of employment," he says, "and I have been able to make my family feel secure with my new income". Gorachand is not alone. Prior to this project, not one single household had a personal savings account. Now, through the project's income-generation schemes, several hundred persons are saving money at the local Baitarani Gramya bank.

The INDISCO project has triggered a process of community-owned and driven initiatives towards decent and productive employment for these tribal peoples. Covering a cluster of 40 villages consisting of over 2,000 tribal households, this expanded project is a sequel to an earlier pilot exercise (1994-1999), which demonstrated the importance of participatory methodologies in tribal initiatives. The present project activities took off in May 2001, building capacities to manage their own institutions, providing microcredit and skills-development for employment.

"In India, tribal people account for 8 per cent of the population, with about 52 per cent of them subsisting below the poverty line," says Dilnawaz Mahanti, the National Project Coordinator of INDISCO in India. "Socially, geographically, as well as economically excluded, they are faced with a steadily depleting livelihood base as a result of depleting natural resources on which they are dependent." Illiteracy and ignorance of the market potential of their resources make them vulnerable to exploitation by external agents, and forced them into the debt trap and distress migration in search of wage labour.

Tribal peoples present a unique challenge because they are difficult to reach. The major thrust of these projects is to generate employment through skills development and upgrading traditional skills with simple technologies, mainly based on natural resource management. "The programme enables the formation of self-supporting cooperatives among ethnically homogenous groups," says Herman van der Laan, Director of the ILO subregional office in India. "This lends a stronger voice, social protection, and organizational strength to the tribals."

The main occupation of tribal communities is agriculture. Most tribals are marginal farmers with an average of one to two hectares of land. Crop failure is frequent in drought years. Deforestation has left large areas barren, provoking soil erosion and loss of income from forest produce, which is an important source of income. The project recognizes and builds upon the tribal people's own indigenous systems of sustainable land and natural resource management, striking a balance between economic utilization and ecological preservation.

The tribal people's cooperatives (which are still in the making), are on their way to all -round empowerment, getting themselves equipped to manage their own enterprises, access support services and obtain fair prices for products. Revolving loan funds provide credit. Women are receiving training in microcredit and accounting.

The project had a considerable impact on expanding the women's income through mobilization and targeted skills training. "While the women's workload remains heavy, they have gained a stronger position in the communities by empowering themselves towards self-sufficiency," says Ms. Mahanti. "Such empowerment has helped boost the morale and esteem of these women, who are now more receptive to new concepts on literacy, savings, health issues, etc."

Revolving loan funds have also been used to start up activities such as pisciculture and animal husbandry. Some persons are running grocery shops, cycle repair shops, beekeeping and garment industries. Training in sal leaf-cup making has helped a large group move into processing the leaves of the sal tree by using machines acquired through the project. A group of tribal youth was given typing training. "It was through the women's groups of the project that I learned about the typing training,"says Saniya Singh of Durgapur village. "I work as a village guard because I could not afford to continue my studies." Saniya now hopes to buy his own typewriter and find a job with some State government office and earn a decent living.

People are now ready for bigger and more ambitious activities. Emerging from the shadows, the women of INDISCO project villages are now equal partners in the decision-making process. Tribal communities identify themselves very closely with their natural habitat and practice their traditional skills in natural resource management. "Our experience", notes Mr. Van der Laan, "has been that any strategy for employment generation with tribal peoples is most likely to succeed if it is based on upgrading traditional skills with simple technology, and utilizing available natural resources". All activities are implemented in consultation with the people, and identified in most part by them. The ILO is the facilitator and provides the required technical support, striking a balance between blending modern and traditional systems specific to the region.

Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman