Our Stories, Our Songs, Our Forests: Building Adivasi Youth Power
நம் கதை,நமது பாடல்,நமது காடு: பழங்குடி இளைஞர்களை ஒன்றினைப்போம்
Our Forest Dreams is a collection of Adivasi tales from Gudalur. First published in Tamil, this community-led collaboration by a group of poets, translators, designers and illustrators is now available in English, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and Odia.
Don’t forget to explore the accompanying music album Our Forest Lives featuring ten songs to motivate community members, especially youth and children, to fight for their right to land, forest, and political empowerment.
Learn with Medhi.
This story is a conversation between Medhi, a young Adivasi girl from the Nilgiris in South India, and her grandmother. What are forest rights? How did we lose our lands? What is our history? Made as a tool for our own communities, this book combines history as told to us by our elders with new information about the Forest Rights Act (2006).
Don’t forget.
“From the cutting down of forests to make way for plantations by the British, followed by our own governments displacing and criminalizing Adivasis and their way of life, to speaking about the loss of our religions, this book seeks to tell the story of what we have lost over the last century.”
~ The Hindu, “Highlighting marginalisation of tribal communities in Gudalur through art and storytelling”
Pass it on.
We hope people outside our communities will be able to use this book. The Forest Rights Act is not just for Adivasis but all forest dwellers. And while the story takes place in the Nilgiris, it will resonate with communities dependent on forests, in India and across the world.
“O Ajji, how can we make things better? How do we reclaim our territory from settlers?”
”O Medhi, some of us live near forests and seas. Others in cities reside. No matter where we live, the fight is deep inside. It’s not in our hearts to be individualists. We keep on pushing together: resist, resist! We know that five fingers make a fist.”
'Our Forest Dreams' is now available in English and five Indian regional languages!
Our Forest Dreams
ನಮ್ಮ ಕಾಡಿನ ಕನಸು
നമ്മുടെ കാടിന്റെ സ്വപ്നങ്ങൾ