The Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority (KSLMA) has launched a special programme to make tribal people in Wayanad district literate.
The State government has earmarked ₹50 lakh for the project and it envisages to make nearly 18,000 tribal people in 4,000 hamlets literate, P.S. Sreekala, Director, KSLMA, said. It also aimed at executing tribal women empowerment programmes and job-oriented training programmes, and at ushering new literates into equivalency courses, Dr. Sreekala added.
The organisation had launched a pilot project in the Attappady tribal area last year and it was a huge success. “This inspired us to launch the project in Wayanad,” she said.
“We are planning to make 8,823 illiterate tribal people in 300 tribal settlements literate in the initial phase,” she added.
The first phase of the project would be completed in December and it would help the neo-literates appear for the class IV equivalency course of the authority. One study centre each has been set up in the tribal hamlets and two instructors have been appointed at each centre.
Apart from the literacy programme, the project envisages development activities in tribal hamlets with the assistance of the Kudumbasree district mission, awareness campaigns against alcohol abuse among tribes with the assistance of the Excise Department, and imparting of financial literacy to the tribespeople with the help of Canara Bank.