Rally organised by Child Fund India
Tribal children participating in a rally organised by Child Fund India in connection with the State-level campaign and Child Rights Convention held in the city on Friday.Tribal children are extremely talented but they do not get opportunities to showcase them, said R.Kannan, Conservator of Forests, Coimbatore, here on Friday.At a State-level campaign and child rights convention on “Issues and challenges of tribal children of Tamil Nadu” organised by Child Fund India (CCF India), he said the Forest department had 19 schools - two higher secondary schools, 10 middle schools and seven elementary schools.
In a school at Pollachi, 117 tribal children were studying. The Government should have more such schools for tribal children.The welfare schemes such as State Forest Development scheme, National Forest Development scheme and Hill Area Development scheme offered by the State and the Central Government should reach tribals and should be utilised properly, he said.For this, the tribals should be made aware of such schemes.In the Nilgiris and Coimbatore together, there were 95 tribal settlements, which had 2,458 families.These scattered communities should come together and form a federation of sorts. The tribal population in Coimbatore was 0.68 per cent and that in Udhagamandalam was 3.72.
The revenue earned from tourism in forest areas, especially in places such as Kovai Coutralam, should benefit the tribal communities living in the surrounding areas.Srinivas Goud, Area Manager, CCF India, said that Adivasi children were still under the ladder of development indicators in the country.Most of the tribal children had no access to clean drinking water and good health facilities and more than 70 per cent of them were malnourished.The morbidity rate was also high among these tribal settlements.The right to survival, development, protection and participation were identified as the four basic rights by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The aim of the current convention was to address the issues and challenges faced by the Adivasi and nomadic tribes of Tamil Nadu, promote the culture and art of tribal communities and sensitise the stakeholders to tribal development initiatives, he said.Ensuring survival, healthy growth and development of the tribal children, identifying their potential and making them self-reliant, contributing citizens was the main aim of the CCF India, said Antony Kokoth, Zonal Manager, CCF India.
