Gujarat's Siddi Tribe, India's Marginalised Community With Multifaceted Challenges
Siddis, who have a heritage going back almost 800 years and have been living in India for decades, are among the country's forgotten and marginalised communities
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Alfiza Majgul, a Siddi tribe member, has a gold medal. She is a national-level silver medalist in wrestling. A resident of Hadmatiya village, 36 km away from Somnath, the Class 8 student is studying in the Eklavya model residential school to pursue her dream of making her parents proud.
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Education and access to healthcare are inadequate for this marginalised ethnic group. To make both accessible to the tribe, the Anganwadis in the areas where the community resides have been deployed to make preschool education playful, joyous, and engaging for impressionable young children. The Anganwadis are the focal point for the implementation of all the health, nutrition, and early learning initiatives under the Integrated Child Development Services programme.
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The kindergartens in the areas where the community resides, the infrastructure has been upgraded with BALA (Building as Learning Aid), under which the infrastructure will be weatherproof, the buildings will be painted with all the animated creatures to grab children's attention, and the faculty will be guided with all the learnings they need to provide to the children.
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Gulabi Didis are on the forefront of driving Reckitt's nutrition programme Reach Each Child. 21-year-old Bajarani Alfiza is from the Siddi community and is among the few who completed her education. She is a trained nurse who has joined the Reach Each Child programme as a Gulabi Didi