Year of Inception:     2004

No. of panchayats:  16

No. of partners:        8

No. of districts:         3 (Koraput, Nawrangpur, Malkangiri)

Supported by:           Trocaire , Ireland 

Focus Areas:

•  Capacity building of the tribal community.
•  Planning and implementation for enhanced livelihood.
•  Increased livelihood options for the vulnerables.
•  Aware and informed community for better governance. 

Tribal communities as known originally to everybody that they live in their very own nature rich world engaged in evolving their own systems of social and political organization, culture, language, in fact a whole way of life in harmony with the environment which they are placed. Their subsistence, sustenance and survival essentially based upon forest, land and water, which form their lifeline as they provide source for food gathering, agriculture, shifting cultivation and other natural resources for their day-to-day living. But over centuries, the avaricious and predacious "civilized societies" have been raiding their resources, encroaching on their ecology and maiming their minds, thereby weakening their subsistence base, which has been adversely affecting their self sufficiency and threatening their very existence. 

Today tribal have been subjected to poverty and socio-economic deprivation mainly due to such erosion of their subsistence-based economy. But it is heartening to mention here that of late there have been a lot of initiatives across the globe to protect the livelihood of the tribal people, their culture and the community as a whole .In line with the trend for protection of tribal livelihood and culture, TROCAIRE, Ireland and Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar joined hands in the year 2004 to trigger a process which will go a long way in empowering the tribal community to not only assert their rights over resources but also in helping them to join the mainstream of life. 

Progress perspective 

• Training programmes on common health issues have been organized for members of Gram Sangathan for increased awareness among the people.
• Orientation training on Sustainable agriculture has been organized to train the farmers on soil and its quality, so that farm related activity would get strengthened.
•  Micro planning related PRA exercise is going on to prepare the Lok Yojna for preparing a concrete plan of action for the operational villages.
•  Panchayat Level women convention organized to bring about increased sensitization among the people on various women related issues like Education, Health and Gender discrimination, Water etc.
•  Strengthening of Panchayat Sangathan to act as a pressure group for smooth mobilization of resources and effective implementation of schemes.
•  Effective rapport building with officials of the line department for increased access to information on different schemes and more involvement in the activities at the village and panchayat level.