Seventy-five-year-old Fr. Jose Kaleekal is the eldest among a group of people from the Attuvassery Development and Educational Society Organization (ADES). The people live in difficult terrain. He has accompanied people in their struggles and challenges for many years. He spent some years helping fisher folk at the Vizhinjam Centre in Trivandrum. When he heard that the Indian Social Institute Bangalore was working on a  new model of a training package to build the capacities and leadership of youth in South India, focusing on Dalits, Adivasis, fisher folk, minorities, etc he put in more effort to help the youth in his village called Sarovarm (Puthoormukku). Fr. Jose approached ISI-B, signed an MoU and now the youth are part of the training package of the Indian Social Institute.

The Dalits in Kollam zone were always denied their lawful right over land and resources due to the oppressive caste hierarchical system and discriminatory power relations. It is due to this exclusion from land and resources that they always stood outside the hallowed corridors of privilege. From 13 to 15th January 2023, the Indian Social Institute conducted the 3rd module on People’s Entitlements. The sessions focused on critical thinking, perspective building and creating greater awareness of social realities. The participants learnt the rights of citizens as enshrined in the Indian Constitution, various available entitlements and the need to work on a rights-based approach.

All youth expressed with one voice that they are ready to teach others about constitutional rights and entitlements. “We are all citizens of India and we have certain rights and entitlements, we will give awareness to all others. From now on we will not allow ourselves to be divided in the name of religion, caste, language, or any other category. Rather, we will commit ourselves to transform oneself and society”, said Ekalavyan from Native Christian Federation. “I want to give awareness and help people to know about their entitlements”, said Amaladev.

“This training programme helped me to understand entitlement are my rights and I learned how to fight for my rights,” said Aravind M, from NCF Organization. “I got an opportunity to interact with a lawyer who took sessions on People’s entitlements,” said Sivaji T, studying first year under graduation.

30 vibrant youths from various NGOs in Kollam took part in a three-day workshop on ‘Peoples Entitlement’. The workshop was organised in collaboration with Attuvassery Development and Education Society (ADES), Native Christian Federation (NCF) and Rural Education and Development Society Maranadu (REDSM).

 

Sr. Lilly D

Facilitator of Programmes

Social Inclusion & Democracy Unit, Kerala