ITWWS

ITWWS is a Non Governmental Development Organisation established in 1986. It was founded with the aim of protecting natural resources, empowering Irula women and using the Irula tribe’s knowledge of forest resources for economic prosperity.

It is a membership based organisation which started initially with five villages and now covers an area of 4 districts working with over 100 villages. Because of the extensive work in the field of adivasi empowerment, ITWWS has received widespread public recognition and several awards at national and international levels.The centre is very popular for the indigenous knowledge of Irulas.

Inorder to bring overall development of Irula tribes ITWWS shall focus on seven point Empowerment Literacies. This strategic ultimate plan is prepared on the basis of present socio-economic scenario and the learnings from the past working experience. This will reclaim our people’s rights with dignity without loosing Irulas’ indigenous identity.

Print Literacy: talks about education, literacy, numeracy, dropouts’ reduction, girl child education, quality education with traditional methodology, appropriate syllabus, value based education with human dignity and adoption of modern technology.
Body Literacy: talks about health care, maintenance of sanitation, access to health centers, revival of herbal medicine, HIV/AIDS prevention, special care to women and girls, promotion of traditional healing practices and mainstreaming Irula vaidyars’ knowledge.
Money Literacy: talks about economic development schemes, livelihood opportunities, access to credit for women, loans, assets building, assets ownership, special attention to physically challenged people and employment reservation for marginalised communities.
Civil Literacy: talks about civil rights including rights to full citizenship, access to basic needs, amenities and other village facilities, protection of human rights, fundamental rights, support to single women and old age, functions of various government departments and role of judiciary.
Ecological Literacy: talks about environment protection, regeneration of forests, rights to non-timber forest produces, customary rights over common property resources, share in forest collections, adopting indigenous bio-diversity protection strategies, community forest resource management, rain water harvesting and organic cultivation.
Identity Literacy: talks about cultural rights, revival of best practices from tradition, promoting adivasi perspective and transforming cultural arts and talents, mainstreaming indigenous gender values, traditional talents & using it for livelihood development and adivasi identity promotion.
Political Literacy: talks about right to political participation, equal space in panchayat raj institutions, reservation for women and marginalised, equal opportunity in all decision making process and role of member of legislative assembly & parliament in policy making.