TATHYA: Pulse of unsung Heroes

March 19, 2010 - PRLog -- One of the key challenges identified for inclusive growth is the need to raise awareness about the underserved and underprivileged in the educated and the well served population, so that there is substantial sensitivity of the underlying reasons for economic disparity. While understanding the reasons, it is important to acknowledge the fact that small producers and the micro and small enterprises contribute immensely towards the growth story. As a tribute to their contribution to economic growth, ALC India has conceptualized Tathya.

Each one of us relates to cinemas and finds a facet of our life in it. It is cinema which resonates many colours of life. We laugh, we cry and we live with cinema. While many actors and actresses have made a fortune out of cinema, it is the unsung communities of the country whose immense contributions define our lives that will be the focus of Tathya.

Tathya is a visual treat with 15 movies on the day-to-day lives of the poor. Be it the lives of Arundhatiyars of Tiruchirapalli involved in footwear making or of a rural folk artist trying to balance his love for music and the reality to fill his belly or fisherfolk getting affected because of new industries or of how policies can affect nomadic communities of Rajasthan, they are all there. These will make one think about the range of livelihoods issues that do not receive our attention in the daily life.

Apart from this, Tathya will also showcase artisan products in 12 Kiosks. The products which adorn our homes have a story to tell about their originators. You will get to learn about them from the people who soil their hands directly with them: the various Development Agencies working for the promotion of artisan livelihoods.

The event is being organised by a group of development agencies led by Access Livelihoods Consulting (ALC) India and supported by Oxfam India, Basix, Chetna Organics and Jeevika

Established in 2005, ALC India till date has executed projects with more than 120 organisations across 23 states of the country. Through these partnerships and projects, ALC India has promoted and developed livelihoods of nearly 1 lakh households.

ALC India through its efforts have been creating various platforms to engage public in debates through formal and informal discussions. Tathya is one more attempt & an extension to the two way dialogue. Tathya over the next few years will involve public opinion, various institutions & policymakers who have been involved in socio economic development to come together & bring sustainable change in the society.  
 
Though it will be a small beginning, everyone can contribute to Tathya by being its part on the 20th and 21nd of March 2010 at Ravindra Bharati from 12:00 am to 9:00 PM. You can also make your presence felt by participating in the live discussions at the end of each of these sessions with experts.

MOVIES FOR TATHYA

Wealth Amidst Dust – A short video on Living conditions of Migrant labour working in Brick Kilns in  and  around Hyderabad- Screening at Tathya National Livelihoods Festival at Hyderabad
An estimated 6 Lakh people migrate from Orissa and Maharashtra to Andhra Pradesh as migrant labour to brick kilns. Wealth Amidst Dust gets close to these people and captures the exploitative working conditions- shelter, wages, working hours, health problems, and status of the children, women and adolescent girls. With little or no assets, skills or education, these migrant ends up losing even the meagre privileges of being in their own village and don’t belong to any land. Children, more often than not, drop out of school to accompany their parents, only to be sucked into the vortex of hard labour, and lack of opportunity, education, and a future.
Failure of monsoons and more so abject failure of state in providing them with support in source areas force them to migrate in semi bonded conditions. The direct impact of such circumstances contributes to immense suffering of children and women. Women in particular are deprived of safe shelter, protection against abuse and access to health and hygiene. The film attempts to capture oppressive nature of brick kiln operations which results in abuse and exploitation of woman and children, lack of enough food and various health hazards.  In particular adolescent girls are forced into work even during menstrual cycle as they are part of unit, which is exclusively designed to meet work requirements of brick making.
An estimated 30 million population are in interstate migration and 6 million constitute children and the film focuses on invisible nature of their existence in a foreign land where rule of law is far from their realms of existence.  The film brings out the hardships faced by citizens in their own country raising various acts and laws that come into conflict with illegal nature of kilns operation, which is parallel to any other unorganized work in the country. On one hand, if India’s claim to exclusive economic growth has hugely contributed to nation’s wealth, on the other side, it has created very difficult conditions for large number of unskilled labour and women in particular. Wealth amidst Dust is a contemporary commentary on failure of governance. The video has raised many public debates on implementation of acts such Inter State Migrant Workmen Act, Right to Education of Migrant children, human rights of working women in unorganized labour.
The video has been screened at Hyderabad International Film Festival (2007) and at various International and National workshops on human rights. After prolonged 18 months battles, the accused in case of rape and abuse of women in the film have been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by Rangareddy District court.  There are around 1000 kilns in and around Hyderabad, which support Rs.50000 Crore construction industry, but it hardly alleviate suffering of the marginalised, poor, tribals and dalit communities from western Orissa.  Unfortunately even the Government of India did not recognize them under recently passed Building and Construction workers act, making film more relevant in understanding livelihoods of one of the most invisible working group. The film funded by ActionAid International is directed by Vishy.  
Vishy did films on fishing communities, positive people, dalits, corruption and education for various National and International agencies including Ministry of Rural Development. For more details- visit-www.vishyvideos.blogspot.com, www.viddler.com/explore/vishyteki
Disposable:  director vimlendu jha
The paradox of modern living!!  Process of urban development, economic expansion & consumption are all expressions of a varied notion and forms of creativity. All of these processes use ingenious ways to create & necessitate creation of newer commodities and strategies that inevitably lead to enormous waste. In a non-descript slum in Jahangirpuri, the hair you throw into your bathroom bin transforms into wigs for idols, and the toys you dispose of make their way into second-hand markets.
Even as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is set to privatise the door-to-door collection of garbage in the city, a new documentary takes a look at those whose livelihoods are attached to the 7,000 metric tonnes garbage generated in the Capital daily.
Disposable, a documentary made by NGO Swechha, follows your garbage bag from the neighbourhood dumps, sanitary landfills in Ghazipur, slums around Jahangirpuri, Kotla Mubarakpur and Wazirabad, and uncovers a world of organised garbage-sorting and recycling by the estimated one lakh waste-pickers in Delhi.
These waste-pickers don’t have it easy, but Delhi’s own slumdogs deserve a better deal, the documentary argues.