Andhra’s Tribal Youth Turn to Skills, Tourism for New Livelihoods

Visakhapatnam: Two decades ago, a ZP High School in Sarabhannapalem in Koyyuru was shut down for a couple of days after several students walked out into forests under the guidance of outlawed Maoists.

Later, the Girijan Sangham made efforts to reopen the school. That was at the peak of Maoist activities in Andhra Pradesh.

After their activities were controlled and the red extremists driven out -- they went and set up camps in Chhattisgarh and Odisha -- the youngsters turned to ganja-smuggling. This provided them the livelihood.

The government now has a serious task at hand, weaning them away from both activities.

“Maoists have gone. These youngsters are now dreaming about a world that is outside their agency tracts, so as to lead quality life,’’ said V Abhishek, project officer of ITDA, Paderu, in ASR District.

Talking to Deccan Chronicle on Sunday, Abhishek said the ITDA has introduced several schemes for their uplift, which included skill development, entrepreneurship, coaching for service commission jobs and training the school students for professional courses.

Among them, a skill development scheme, Saral, sponsored by ILO and ITDA was launched recently to train the youths to take up jobs in the hospitality sector.

Similarly, civil services coaching started last year. Over 40 students cleared the preliminary and are preparing for the main examination.

In order to prepare school students for getting admitted into professional courses, the ITDA has started a Super 50 Kids programme under which students, after qualifying a test, would be admitted into Colleges of Excellence located in Marikavalasa, Visakhapatnam, Vissannapeta in Guntur and Jogampeta in Vizianagaram district.

These colleges, run by the tribal welfare department, offer integrated courses for those who appear for NEET and JEE.

A career education programme has been launched for the tenth and Inter students, for which two master trainees were selected from among the teachers of Ashram schools, the PO said.

In addition, job melas were being organised and over 2,000 youngsters were registering every year.

He said 120 youngsters were selected under the Koushal Vikas Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Deendayal Upadhyaya and the Grameen Koushal Vikas Yojana for training in the hospitality industry. The training resulted in 30 Adivasi youths getting jobs in hotels in Tirupati and Vijayawada.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Employment Guarantee Scheme, about 250 Adivasis got loans for setting up restaurants and other tourism activities, the PO said.

“Ganja brought a bad image for Araku. We want Araku to be made popular for tourism and coffee,’’ the project officer said.

However, more needs to be done. Adivasi JAC convener, Ramarao Dora, said thousands of Adivasi youth are struggling without jobs. The government is supporting them till graduation. After that they have to look for teacher training and nursing courses with their own money, to get jobs.

“Many of these youths are involved in ganja smuggling to raise money for these training programmes and other needs,’’ Dora said.