Catching the Moon Project Launch

Cruising the backroads of India's Koraput Plateau, I could see why anyone would want to ride a motorcycle here. My colleague, Pabitra, is a careful driver and we covered the 10 km from the SPREAD office at Mattamput to the Pila Panchat meeting at a pace that allowed me to enjoy the spring breeze, take in the flowering trees and wave to the villagers who stood up from their toil cultivating paddy to wonder "Who is that stranger riding with Pabitra?"

My name is Margaret Campbell and I am a visiting American consultant working as a communications advisor with the Society for Promotion of Rural Education and Development (SPREAD) in Koraput town, Odisha, India. On Sunday, February 21st, I was working with Pabitra Nayak, Prasant Patnaik, Sukharam Gandanga and Pila Panchayat, SPREAD's youth governance group, to launch a project to document the cultural heritage of the Odisha Hill Tribes. Our project, entitled "Catching the Moon" after the Odia saying "A janha mamu sarag sasi mo kanhu hatre podore khosi", is meant to accomplish three things:

1. The capture and sharing of oral traditions and performing arts of the Odisha Hill Tribes at tribal museums and over community radio.
2. An increased appreciation by Pila Panchayat members to the importance of their culture and exposure to five occupations related to the project: anthropologist, journalist, broadcaster, civil servant and community organizer.
3. The creation of a project "quick start" kit so that other youth groups will have an easy time of launching their own projects. This blog is part of that aspect of the project.

About 30 children were assembled for the monthly planning meeting. Although more than 600 children participate in Pila Panchayat, the leadership consists of one boy and one girl from each of the 12 villages. Pila Panchayat acts like a smaller version of the panchayat local governance system. The typical business of the group is to identify issues of concern to children, such as school enrolment, teacher attendance, midday meals and health services, and escalate them to village leaders and beyond. Another objective of the group is to honor and cultivate their cultural identity. One boy had brought in two traditional songs, which he performed after much coaxing, about the daily life of a child in the villages. Our Catching the Moon project will give the children a way to share their cultural heritage with others outside Pila Panchayat, and preserve it for future generations.

Pila Panchayat also holds an annual convention, which in 2010 will take place March 31 and April 1. We are planning the activities around the themes of Catching the Moon, with a play to kick off the event introducing a hapless hunter trying to capture his culture (it is Chaitra Parab, the tribal festival, on this day, which makes the hunting theme especially relevant), a children's museum to illustrate the fun of sharing culture, and individual photos of each child in frames that say "It's up to me to preserve my culture" in local language. We won't have formal training at the convention - just fun with the themes - but will follow up with more detailed information at the April meeting of the group.