Adivasi Sambad Meeting :
The fourth Adivasi Samvaad meeting was held at Songadh, Gujarat from 16-18, December 2010.The theme of the Adivasi Samvaad meeting was Value based Leadership. Total 150 nos of participants attended the meeting.
VIBGYOR Film Festival :
The 6th Edition of VIBGYOR film festival was held from 12th to 16th January, 2011 at Sangeeta Natak Academy Campus, Thrissur, Kerala. The VIBGYOR film festival is one of the most special festivals where film makers, artists, musicians and activists can meet and exchange ideas on issue that matter. The festival also encourages, though small but a powerful section of youngsters including students to come together to understand documentary-short-film movement, its content and relevance.
ISF
With a strong notion of “A Justice Based Another World is Possible” – Indian Social Forum was organised at New Delhi from 9th – 13th November 2006 where nearly about 50,000 participants from all over the country as well as neighboring countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan were assembled together to put forth their demands ensuring basic human rights. The Indian Social Forum served as a common platform for all these participants who had come from different backgrounds. The forum specifically urged for expressing solidarity against the ongoing process of globalization, liberalisation and privatization which has threatened the lives and the livelihoods of millions of the deprived and marginalized communities all over the world. Representatives from Orissa Adivasi Adhikar Abhiyan, staff members from the member NGOs and some Team Leaders of ODAF participated in Indian Social Forum. As a follow-up of the process of World Social Forum and Indian Social Forum, it was unanimously proposed by all the representatives from Orissa in New Delhi to convene a state-level seminar of Orissa Social Forum at Bhubaneswar on 21st January 2007
CBP
The Capacity Building Programme(CBP) of ODAF is organised to enhance and strengthen the capacities of the second-line leadership of the Member-NGOs of ODAF with regard to their developmental orientation, knowledge and skills generic and comparative knowledge on concepts, methods and instrumentalities of development in-depth orientation on critical issues or relevant themes in the present context of Orissa, to promote and deepen critical orientation and knowledge among the second-line leadership of the Member-NGO of ODAF specifically on Globalisation, WTO and SAP (particularly in the context of Orissa) and with this equip them for a people-centred, participatory and advocating countervailing praxis
Under the CBP programme of ODAF, Module 9 - Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Documentation and Module 10 - Advocacy, Lobby and Human Rights was organised from 8th -16th of August 2006 in Berhampur. Mr.Pradeep Estaves and Mr.Anil Choudhury were invited as resource persons and Dr.Badal Sen Gupta was the over all facilitator for the CBP Programme
National Workshop on Tribal Healers and Exhibition on Tribal Medicine
Traditional medicine is an age-old medical practice that existed in human societies before the application of modern science to health. It has evolved to reflect different philosophical backgrounds and cultural origins. Although modern medicine is widespread, traditional tribal medicine still exists in many countries across the world. Interest in traditional medicine system has increased over the years. People in many countries are now more prepared to look for alternative approaches to maintain their health. Demands for traditional medicine from the public and the growing economic importance of traditional medicine have led to increased interest on the part of both governments, academic communities and healer practitioners.
Tribal medicine approach is holistic with a blending of physical, mental, social and spiritual well being. Its use is global. Even in the face of sophisticated western system of medicine it has thrived especially in the remote areas of the country. The methods practiced by the tribals in many cases are found to be positive, beneficial and scientifically sound. They represent an autonomous system supported by the community. The common customs, traditions, values, beliefs and practices associated with tribal health and diseases have a direct bearing with their treatment of physical ailments. The traditional tribal medicine practitioners are regarded as the traditional healers in their societies and they do not belong to any specific school, such as Ayurvedic/ Allopathic/ Homeopathic etc. There is no written document on the subject. The principles of ingredients of tribal medicine are derived from plant source. India has a great variety of traditional healing systems. Over the centuries, the tribals have developed their own system. Often healing is considered a gift that runs in a family and is passed down from generation to generation. The ability to set bones, for example, is thought to be hereditary as is the power to stop bleeding. Intellectual property rights and Peoples Bio Diversity Register play a greater role in the protection of rights of adivasis over their traditional knowledge system. Efforts should be made to organize similar type exhibition in different states in collaboration with NGOs and Government to ensure wider participation of tribal healers across the states.
Since the tribal medicine and medicine parishioners are to be safeguarded for their dedication to the sufferings humanity, there is a need for legal provisions to protect their intellectual property rights. The first National Workshop on Tribal Healers was organized by the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS) Bhopal, from 15 to 19th May, 1998 at Kozhikode Kerala in collaboration with KIRTADS, Kerala and the 2nd and 3rd National Workshops were organized at its own campus at Bhopal from November 18th to 22nd 2005 and 14 to 18th Feb. 2007 respectively. Now IGRMS and Orissa Development Action Forum are jointly organizing the Fourth National Workshop and Exhibition on Tribal Medicines at Martyrs Memorial-cum-Freedom Fighters Home, Bhubaneswar during 14th to 18th of December 2007.The basic objective of the workshop and exhibition is to generate awareness about the ethno-medicines, facilitate for sharing the traditional knowledge system among the people, to make people aware about the benefits from patent rights and People’s Bio Diversity Register etc
The exhibition on tribal medicines will help not only in disseminating traditional knowledge system but also in networking among the tribal healers across the nation.
Bi Annual Meeting
ODAF Bi-Annual Meetings are organised twice in a year corresponding to the half yearly reporting periods. Usually they meet in the month of June and November of the financial year. All the Team Leaders of ODAF, staff representative from member NGOs, secretariat staff and at some times representatives from communities attend these meetings. The 49th Bi-Annual Meeting of ODAF was held from 7th to 8th January 2009 at Hotel New Marrion, Bhubaneswar.
ODAF’s Celebration of its 20 Years Journey
ODAF is a forum of different Non-Governmental Organisations who came together to address drought issues in Orissa through a long term systematically planned development processes towards overcoming the impact of drought and facilitate building sustainable communities. It was launched in 9th January 1988 and completed two decades of its service in January 2009. The journey of ODAF over 20 years has been a meaningful engagement of collective efforts for bringing change in the lives of the poor and the marginalised. In this occasion, a two-day programme was organised on 9th and 10th January 2009 at Bhubaneswar.
The foundation day i.e. 9th January 2009 was celebrated at Freedom Fighters Ground, Bhubaneswar where the programme began with the inauguration of an Exhibition based on ODAF programmes. The exhibition was inaugurated by Dr. Rajaratnam, Economist and Chairman of ODAF. He was accompanied by Mr. Jagadananda, Information Commissioner, Government of Orissa and the Guest of Honour for the occasion. After the visit of the exhibition, the Guests were escorted on to the dais. The opening song was presented by a Cultural group consisting of staff of ODAF member NGOs. Dr. Joe Madiath, Vice Chairman, ODAF welcomed all and introduced the dignitaries on the dais. Dr. Madiath also read out the message from Shri Muralidhar Chandrakant Bhandare, His Excellency, the Governor of Orissa. It was followed by the Lighting of the Lamp by the Guests and release of the Book on ODAF and Greetings by Guest of Honour Shri Jagadananda.
A brief presentation of 20 years Journey of ODAF was done by Dr. William Stanley, Executive Secretary, ODAF. The address of OAAA was made by Mr. Prem Patra Jani, President, OAAA. Greetings from EED, Germany was read out by Mr. Felix Madiath, Finance Consultant of ODAF. Mr. Sailesh Chakravarty, National Convener, FCFC greeted on behalf of FCFC which was followed by the greetings from FMSF by Mr. Sanjay Patra, Executive Director, FMSF and Ms. Anuradha Singh of FMSF. Greetings from Padmashree Tushar Kanjilal, Secretary, TSRD was shared by Mr. Digambar Satapathy, Liaison Officer, TSRD.
Late Dr. Badal SenGupta was honoured by the Chief Guest and to Mr. Bijoy SenGupta, younger brother of Dr. Badal SenGupta received memento on behalf his family. It was followed by the address of the Chief Guest - Dr. K. Rajaratnam, Chairman, ODAF. At the end of the inaugural session, vote of thanks was given by Dr. Aditya Patnaik, Treasurer, ODAF.
The second session after the Tea break was named as Reflections. In this session, the welcome and introduction of the guests was done by Adv B.P. Tripathy, Advocacy Consultant, ODAF. The session was moderated by Mr. Pramod Patnaik, Member, ODAF. ODAF recognised and honoured some people in various categories (Posthumous, Change Makers, Civil Scoety Leaders, and Member NGOs of ODAF) for their contribution for evolution, journey and efforts for the betterment of people especially poor and marginalised sections of Orissa. Vote of thanks was given by Ms. Basanti Kui, Member, OAAA.
The third session was Rejuvenations to celebrate the event through cultural programmes from various corners of Orissa that reflected the colourful and culturally rich Orissa. The programme was facilitated by Mr. GP Samantaray, member of ODAF. Vote of thanks was given by Mr. Bhusan Benya, Member, ODAF. A get together and dinner of the ODAF family called it a day for the 9th January 2009.
The second day of the celebration was a ‘National Seminar on Challenges to Peace and Development’ organised at Hotel Marrion, Bhubaneswar. The Keynote Address was presented by Dr. Rajaratnam, Economist and Chairman of ODAF; Prof. Lawrence Surendra, Environmental Economist on ‘The New Development Challenges: Peace and Sustainability’ followed by three sessions such as ‘Developmental Paradigm and Societal Conflicts’; ‘Ethnicity, Caste, Class and Gender’; ‘Food Security, Peace and Governance’. Dr. K.C. Malhotra, Anthropologist; Dr. Shiela Benjamin, Executive Secretary, SCINDeA; Mr. Anil Chaudhary, Human Rights Activist; Dr. Walter Fernandez, Social Scientist; Adv. Sanjay Upadhyaya, Advocate, Supreme Court of India; Mr. Digambar Satapathy, Liaison Officer, TSRD; Ms. Bisakha Bhanja, Women's Rights Activist; Dr. Bhagbanprakash, Former HRD Advisor, Common Wealth - Asia Region and WHO (WR); Mr. Dominic D'Souza, Social Scientist; Mr. Sanjay Khatua, Independent Researcher; Mr. Kumar Kalanand Mani, Gandhian; Dr. Gopal Krishna Panda, Professor in Geography, Utkal University; Dr. Richard Devadoss, Human Rights Activist; Mr. Pradeep Esteeves, Social Scientist were the resource persons in the Seminar.
On the eve 20 years celebration of OAAA and ODAF with the communities, a drawing competition was jointly organised on 11th of January 2009 at Martyrs Memorial cum Freedom Fighters Home, Bhubaneswar by IRDWSI, OAAA and ODAF. The themes for the drawing competition were Peace for better Tomorrow, Children’s Hope for Peace, Peace and Society. 65 no of children from 9 schools of the city participated. Certificate of Participation were provided to all the children participated in the event. Two Professors from the Orissa Art Academy were invited as judges for the programme. Those who secured position were awarded with merit certificate and trophy.
The gracious presence of the guests, dignitaries and the partners of ODAF made the programme a grand success and created more enthusiasm and encouraged the ODAF family to continue the work with the oppressed communities for their wellbeing to live with dignity.
TOT Programme on Peace and Conflict Resolution: The State Level Training on ‘Peace and Conflict Resolution’ was organised from 15th to 21st February 2009. This was a joint programme being organised by Citizen’s Committee on Communal Harmony, Institute of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution (Bombay) and supported by NAWO, Action Aid, ODAF and IRDWSI. The programme was organised at CRD office,Khurda. Mr.Ram Punayani, Dr.Asgar Alli Engineer, Mr. Irfan Ali Engineer Prof.Bijay Bohidar, Mr.Kedar Mishra were the resource person for this programme. Staff and volunteers from the member NGOs of ODAF and OAAA participated in the programme. A two-days training on ‘Peace and Conflict Resolution’ exclusively for the staff and community representatives from member NGOs of ODAF was also organised by ODAF at Pantha Nivas, Bhubaneswar. The subjects discussed in the training programme include
Mr.Ram Punayani was the facilitator for the programme. Staff of the member NGOs and members from OAAA participated in the programme.
Workshop on Challenges to Media on Poverty Reporting Standards: The workshop was organised by WACC,ODAF and IRDWSI on 25th of April 2009 at Hotel Pantha Nivas,Bhubaneswar. Inaugurating the workshop, Mr.Sampad Mohapatra of NDTV shared about how the basic issue in Orissa is not being given importance by the media as it deserves. Highlighting the poverty in Orissa, he said that the media has a vital role to address the issue by properly covering the issue. Eminent economist Prof. Baidyanath Mishra delivered his views on chronic poverty in Orissa. Prof Mirnal Chatterjee of IIMC, Dhenkanal narrated about the trend of sidelining the poverty issues in the frontline newspapers. Along with professors in Economics, Sociology and Political Science, representatives from media, civil society groups, intellectuals and activities attended the meeting and contributed to the process. Participants stressed on the development and promotion of alternative media for addressing the issue. Two films on environment made by the peoples journalists were released on the occasion.
Public Hearing on the Impacts of Climate Change on Forest Eco Systems : Public Hearing on the Impacts of Climate Change on Forest Eco Systems was organized on 28th October 2009 by Civil Society Coalition on Climate Justice and Equitable Development in collaboration with Forum of Collective Forms of Cooperation (FCFC) Eastern Region, Bhubaneswar at Hotel Pantha Nivas, Bhubaneswar which was attended by a good number of participants invited from different parts of Eastern India – mainly from Jharkhand, Orissa including participants from Andhra Pradesh.
The objective of the public hearing was to assess the impact of the climate change on the indigenous people and people surviving on different forest eco-systems in the eastern region of India – Adivasis, Dalits, Fisher folks, Farming and other Occupational communitiesThe submission of testimonies by the least contributors to the climate change helped sharpening the understanding on climate change impacts and its implications and explores ways and means to built forest eco-systems as sustainable habits on a low carbon path by integrating indigenous knowledge and practices to research, plans and policies to address mitigation, adaptation, appropriate technology trans & requited financial provision in different sectors. The public hearing provided an opportunity to interact with the representatives from diverse forest eco-systems which still carry the potential to provide a converging platform for people centred development initiatives – a low carbon economy.
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