International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

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• On 9 August, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is marked every year.

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

• About: 
  • The day is celebrated globally on 9 August. 
  • It marks the date of the inaugural session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982. 
• This year’s theme: 
  • The Role of Indigenous Women in the Preservation and Transmission of Traditional Knowledge. 
• Background:
  • Indigenous women are the backbone of indigenous peoples’ communities and play a crucial role in the preservation and transmission of traditional ancestral knowledge. 
  • They have an integral collective and community role as carers of natural resources and keepers of scientific knowledge. 
  • Many indigenous women are also taking the lead in the defence of lands and territories and advocating for indigenous peoples’ collective rights worldwide.
• Significance of indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge is widely acknowledged: 
  • Long before the development of modern science, which is quite young, indigenous peoples have developed their ways of knowing how to survive and also of ideas about meanings, purposes and values.
  • The term “scientific knowledge” is also used to underscore that traditional knowledge is contemporary and dynamic, and of equal value to other kinds of knowledge.

Issues

• Despite the crucial role that indigenous women play in their communities as breadwinners, caretakers, knowledge keepers, leaders and human rights defenders, they often suffer from intersecting levels of discrimination on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. 
• Their right to self-determination, self-governance and control of resources and ancestral lands have been violated over centuries.
• Small but significant progress has been made by indigenous women in decision-making processes in some communities. The reality, however, remains that indigenous women are widely under-represented, disproportionately negatively affected by decisions made on their behalf, and are too frequently the victims of multiple expressions of discrimination and violence.

Some of the major issues encountered by indigenous women

• High levels of poverty; 
• Low levels of education and illiteracy; 
• Limitations in access to health, basic sanitation, 
• Credit and 
• Employment; 
• Limited participation in political life; and 
• The prevalence of domestic and sexual violence. 

Major Initiatives by Indian Government

• Sankalp Se Siddhi – Mission Van Dhan 
  • TRIFED  plans to expand its operations through convergence of various schemes of different Ministries and Departments and launch the various tribal development programs in Mission Mode under “Sankalp Se Siddhi – Mission Van Dhan”.
  • Through this mission, establishment of 50,000 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras, 3000 Haat Bazaars, 600 Godowns, 200 Mini TRIFOOD Units, 100 Common Facility Centres, 100 TRIFOOD parks, 100 SFURTI clusters, 200 Tribes India retail stores, ecommerce platforms for TRIFOOD and Tribes India brands is being targeted. 
• Tribes India Outlets:
  • Seven new Tribes India Outlets inaugurated at Jagdalpur, Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Sarnath Immunity boosting hampers, 
    • It will showcase tribal products from all over the country and  the outlets will have specific geographical indication (GI) and Vandhan corners and will display the large variety of GI tagged and natural products from different parts of the country. 
    • The Sarnath outlet is the first successful collaboration with the Ministry of Culture at an ASI heritage site. 
      • With these outlets, the total number of Tribes India outlets have gone up to 141.   
• Van Dhan Software Application:

• It is designed to receive and process the Van Dhan proposals online.
• The software application has geographic information system (GIS) integration and can monitor Van Dhan Project implementation activities and can generate related reports. 

• A Digital Connect programme under which a two way communication process is proposed to be established.

• Other Related initiatives:

• TRIFED has been implementing several noteworthy programmes for the empowerment of the tribals. 
• Over the past two years, The ‘Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) & Development of Value Chain for MFP’ has impacted the tribal ecosystem in a major way. 
• The Van Dhan tribal start-ups have emerged as a source of employment generation for tribal gatherers and forest dwellers and the home-bound tribal artisans.  

• During the pandemic, efforts were made for skill development of the tribal artisans and 17 training Programs were approved for benefitting 340 tribal artisans and developing 170 new designed products. 

• Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana (PMVDY)
  • It is an initiative of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED and was launched on 14th April 2018.
  • The scheme seeks to improve tribal incomes through value addition of tribal products.
  • Under this, Van Dhan Vikas Kendra is established for providing skill upgradation and capacity building training and setting up of primary processing and value addition facility.
  • One typical VDVK comprises 15 Self Help Groups, each consisting of 20 Tribal gatherers.
    • The Van Dhan Kendras have been kept functional even during the pandemic and have  ensured livelihoods to the tribal people in the difficult times.
• Tech for Tribal” programme
  • It  was launched by TRIFED and IIT-Kanpur along with IIT-Roorkee, IIM Indore, Kalinga Institute of Social Science, Bhubaneshwar and SRIJAN, Jaipur in the first phase of organising tribal entrepreneurship and skill development program.
  • It is supported by the Ministry of MSME.
  • It aims to transform 5 crore Tribal Entrepreneurs and aims at capacity building and imparting entrepreneurship skills to tribal forest produce gatherers enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri VanDhan Yojana (PMVDY).
  • The Programme will develop entrepreneurship skills among the tribals.

Source: PIB