BHOPAL: Led by a school dropout couple, hundreds of young tribals in vi l lages of Madhya Pradesh’s Jhabua district are engaged in a mission to stop migration by training others in the commercially viable bamboo art. This is not just helping them earn livelihood but has also helped check the migration of local population to Gujarat and Rajasthan.
For last two years, the tribals led by the couple, Krishna and Lata Ninama, have been creating innovative products out of bamboo — which grows abundantly in Jhabua — and training others, too. They have set a target of stopping the migration of 20,000 tribal families by 2030.
The training, which began as part of a larger tribal selfreliance and community movement led by the NGO Shivganga Samgra Gramvikas Parishad in 2014 with just 25-50 young men and women, now has the participation of 900- plus tribals from 25 villages who are crafting innovative products and marketing them through their digital platform, www.jhabuacafts.com.
With Diwali just a month away, the tribals’ latest offering are reusable bamboo diyas – a set of six small diyas priced at Rs 350 and a set of three medium size diyas priced at Rs 450. “We’ve received orders worth around Rs 1 lakh. A team of 60 trained tribals, including 40 at the Bamboo Training Centre in Meghnagar town and 20 in villages, are racing against time to complete the orders before Diwali. Already 10% of the orders are complete,” Krishna Ninama said.
“The reusable bamboo diyas can be easily used for at least five years,” said Lata. According to Krishna, it all started in 2014, when a group of poor tribals associated with the NGO went to Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra in Lawada village of Maharashtra’s Amravati district and got trained in bamboo art. What they learnt there, they sought to teach others.
“Since then, not only have 900-plus tribals been trained in fashioning innovative products, including mobile phone speakers and amplifiers, lamps, furniture and even bamboo rakhis, but we’ve also managed to wean them away from migrating for work,” said Krishna.