Tribal peoples eat nutrition rich food as long as they remain near forests and follow indigenous agricultural practices. Their life gets disrupted, affecting young children the most, after getting away from their habitat. Considering that almost half of 11 million tribal children in India are chronically undernourished, it is a matter of grave concern.
A number of promising solutions have been developed and deployed across the country to address these challenges. ‘Forest Lanterns’, a UNICEF-OneWorld Foundation India publication brought out by Penguin Random House, presents 46 innovative and successful practices covering not only undernutrition of tribal children and their mothers, but also related aspects like farming practices, food security, healthcare, drinking water and sanitation, governance, and media’s role. Written by a who’s who, the solutions have been drawn from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana.
Title: ‘Forest Lanterns’
(A UNICEF-OneWorld Foundation India publication by Penguin Random House)
Editor-in-Chief: Virginius Xaxa
Edited by Rajiv Tikoo
Concept and Technical Leadership Vani Sethi
Endorsement by Kailash Satyarthi and Jual Oram
Contributors include (in order of appearance in the book) Debjeet Sarangi, Bichitra Biswal and Pradeep Patra; Jayesh Joshi; Ajay Parida and Bhavani R.V.; Saroj Mahapatra; Rajashree Joshi; Meera Mishra; Sweta Banerjee; Manohar Agnani; Laxmi Bhawani, Nilam Sawhney and Vani Sethi; Ramani Atkuri; Ganapathy Murugan; Vishal Dev and Sourav Bhattacharjee; Abner E. Daniel and Pratibha Sharma; Abner E. Daniel; Pavitra Mohan and Akanksha Dutta; John Oommen; Yogesh Jain and Suhas Kadam; Dhiren Modi and Pankaj Shah; Vinay Kumar; Rohini Mukherjee, J.C. Reddy and Manish Raikar; Neeru Singh; Arti Ahuja; Somesh Kumar; Rajendra Singh; Arvind Ojha; Joe Madiath and Gobinda Dalai; Siddharth V Patel; Alok Pandey; Sunderrajan Krishnan and Rajnarayan Indu; Sachin Kumar Jain; Geetanjali Master and Sonia Sarkar; Bijoy Basant Patro; Shubhranshu Choudhary; Vani Sethi, Geetanjali Master, Sonia Sarkar and Idhries Ahmad; Ninong Ering, Purvi Malhotra and Astha Alang; Vadrevu Ch Veerabhadrudu; Johnson Topno; Dattatray Gurav; Chandrika Singh and Vani Sethi; Sunita Gupta; N.C. Saxena; Manoj Kumar Pingua; Deepak Kumar Dey; Satish B. Agnihotri; Prasanta Tripathy; and Vandana Krishna.
Key Words: Tribal, women, children, nutrition / undernutrition, farming practices, food security, health care, drinking water and sanitation
