Adivasis of Odisha

"I don't remember since when am I doing this. It has been a long time now. My father was doing it and his father was doing it. Everyone in my family knows how to do make different kinds of handmade things using Sabai Ghasa. We earn our livelihood from this. With the growing demand and help from the government, we (people from their village) are being able to earn better"

In the picture above you see Pandu Makdia from the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, making a bag using Sabai grass so effortlessly. He is 85 years old now and has been engaged in this traditional art of making handmade products almost his entire life.

Sabai Grass is widely grown in different parts of the Mayurbhanj district, which was mainly used for making Sabai ropes. Apart from ropes, the tribes of Mayurbhanj have excellent skills in making daily use objects like bags, pen stands, baskets, etc from Sabai Grass. This traditional craft is a blend of beauty and sustainability.

“My name is Rupeli Pradhan. I am from Daringbadi. Most of us from our village earn our livelihood from farming. We grow paddy annually which helps us earn money in bulk-- from which we keep aside some for spending on yearly expenditure and the rest all we reinvest in farming for the next year or repaying the loans. We also grow haladi (turmeric), mandia (finger millet), biri (split black gram), adaa (ginger), and sorisa (mustard) to help us earn money in shorter intervals to pay for our kids’ school fees, clothes and other extra things. We usually grow haladi on our own but sometimes we need extra. Then we usually buy it for INR 50 per kilo and sell it for INR 80 per kilo. After paying the transportation charges we keep the rest for us.

We are adivasis and we don’t know much about farming and business. But a few years back we formed a Self Help Group with 12 members in it and that helped us know more about farming, business, and communication. We started reaching out to sponsors on our own too.”

That is Rupeli Pradhan in the photo. She is from Daringbadi village in the Kandhamal district. Rupeli has a daughter and two sons. She and her husband both are involved in this farming activity to earn money and support their children’s dreams. What really stood out to me was that Rupeli’s daughter is in her first year of university studying science! She wants her daughter to have a good education and live a better life as she wishes for her sons.SHGs in these villages have given new hope to these Adivasis. There are 11,306 SHGs in Kandhamal district with 1,18,275 members in it.

“I live with my father and mother. My father is a farmer and he engages in growing paddy and vegetables. A few years back, I joined a Self Help Group in my village, Baripada to be able to support my family financially.

After joining the Self Help Group, I took training for 6 months to learn how to make different items from Sabai Grass. We learnt how to make pen stands, flower vases, dustbins, mats, earrings, wall hangings and many other things.”

This is 24 year old Purnima Naik. She is a Bathudi adivasi from Baripada, Mayurbhanj district. The name Bathudi is derived from the term ‘Barthali’. ‘Bar’ means twelve and ‘Thali’ means land or place. While reading up more about the tribe I learnt that the Bathudis consider the birth of a boy or a girl as valuable in their society and do not make any discrimination in caring and rearing. That’s probably where Purnima’s thought of becoming financially independent and supporting her family came from.