Schoolchildren in the Vidya Vanam school on the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, who mostly belong to the tribal community, recently came out with projects on rice paddy. Information about many such rural initiatives and stories is available on the website of People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), which was launched on December 20, 2014, in Chennai.
With his first demo and lecture about PARI in Mumbai, founder-editor and rural journalist P Sainath will introduce the website at Sophia College on January 23 at 2pm. The website is a crowd-sourced funded initiative that accepts participation from everybody; the categories listed on it include farming, rural in the urban, foot soldiers of freedom, women and children, faces, cultures, languages and more. "Only seven speakers of the Saimar language are alive today in Tripura," said Sainath, who began this journey of archives two decades ago. "PARI, as we see it online, started taking shape in 2011, when I felt that the youth is living their lives online and its a labour of a majority of young volunteers."
"According to Google analytics, 61% of the website's visitors are aged between 18 and 34 and 46% are women. A majority of our core team members and filmmakers are also women. We have had many young techies volunteering to get the site up and we had decided that once the website completes three months and we have figured the bugs that come up, we will put up the code as well for everyone to see," added Sainath who believes the stereotype that the young are not interested in rural issues is untrue, as his Delhi launch audience was 85% youths.
The launch video of PARI made by Aparna Karthikeyan shows the journey of a 21-year-old Dalit boy Kali Veerapadran from Kovalam, Tamil Nadu who has mastered the art of Bharatnatyam and three Tamil folk dances as well and was supported by his mother who is a labourer. Sainath said that videos are made public every week and the Facebook page already has 7,223 likes, while its Twitter account has more than 2,000 followers. The way someone can contribute is also listed on the site which helps you to either make a film or back a filmmaker or project, write, edit, research, donate equipment or money and even translate for the website.
"The teachers, writers, photographers, techies, lawyers and even people from medical backgrounds that have already become a part of the site have done so voluntarily. Whatever we do comes from our pockets and since yesterday we have received 980 calls of people willing to volunteer, and we do not wish to lose their enthusiasm," said Sainath.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}