The women who know Kotanger’s trees
In Jharkhand’s Khunti district, Munda women know which trees heal, which feed a family and which carry a lineage. Now field staff from their own villages are walking the forest, counting what grows there and logging it on a national database, so that knowledge outlives a single generation.
Why the Munda women are recording their forest
Munda women in Jharkhand have long known which trees heal and which feed a family, knowledge that’s never been written down, only passed on.
TRDSW is organising forest walks led by the women themselves, training local field staff to record that same forest in a way outsiders can trust, and teaching children in eight nearby schools to start noticing trees the same way.
92 trees logged on a national database this season, and a new generation learning to look closely enough to carry it forward.
Why the Munda community is mapping their own forest
Seventeen from the Munda community are training to survey their own forest the same way, tree by tree.
People like the Munda community have always known when their forest was changing. This training gives that knowledge a form the rest of the world can recognize, and gives villages a real say in how their forest gets protected.
A summer school where books grow on trees
In the Munda villages of Jharkhand’s Khunti district, summer camps run in the open air, with worksheets hung from trees for want of classroom walls. Over three years, Torpa Rural Development Society for Women (TRDSW) has brought nearly 1700 children and their parents together under these trees to learn as they read, sing and perform.
What the city came to learn from the Mundas
When 40 visitors from the city arrived at Saramodah – a small hamlet in Jharkhand’s Khunti district – they came out of curiosity.
Jharkhand’s real food “preservative”
A community-led book documents forest wisdom in the tribal language of Mundari, acting as a healthy, real “food preservative,” turning ancestral food knowledge into a living archive.
For thousands of years, no textbook has documented what Munuren knows
To ensure these ancestral secrets are never lost, Torpa Rural Development Society for Women (TRDSW) has been working alongside these women to document this wisdom.
Munda women are safeguarding indigenous food systems
The Munda tribals of Chota Nagpur in Jharkhand are keeping their culture and identity alive by continuing to practice age-old traditions associated with agriculture.
He sold his goat to teach tribal kids in Jharkhand
A 26-year-old who began a neighbourhood class for tribal kids in Chengde village of Rania block during the pandemic continues to engage them using local and natural educational materials like sticks, stones and leaves.
Involving rural parents in children’s education
School management committee discussions bring parents closer to their children’s education in Jharkhand villages.
Jharkhand woman turns entrepreneur making bamboo handicrafts
Enthused after learning to make bamboo handicrafts, Mira Devi, an enterprising homemaker, harnesses her skills to achieve entrepreneurial success and trains others towards financial self-sufficiency.
Jharkhand’s buzzing beekeeping biz
With wild flowering trees flourishing in Kelo and Jarakel villages, the local tribal communities learn the basics of beekeeping and head towards making the area Jharkhand’s first honey hub.
Tribal women seize opportunity, turn micro entrepreneurs
With the right support, women in Khunti have overcome challenges and emerged as entrepreneurs. Each woman’s micro business has been her family’s financial mainstay during the pandemic.