Gnanajyoti Community College serves the much-needed tribal youth of the Talasari and Dahanu talukas in the Palghar district of Maharashtra. It is one of the units of Nirmala Institute which is a Registered Trust (Trust No BOM-100/78 G.B.S. D.) founded on 2nd February 1978.
The Adivasi communities who are mainly Warli tribals live very frugally on earnings from labour intensive work on their own fields and in small-scale industries along the coast in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Past history indicates that they were defrauded of land by unscrupulous landlords. There is a substantial rate of migration to towns and cities for employment which is mainly manual and unskilled labour.
Their capacity to invest in education, health and other development activities is limited. The Adivasi youth, particularly young women are vulnerable to exploitation at work place since they enter the job market with low skills. They therefore accept low wages and at times unfair terms of employment. Due to extreme poverty both children and adults are malnourished, hence health care and protection is yet another basic need to be taken of.
The Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary (DHM), responded to the urgent needs of the warli tribal villages in Karajgaon in 2006. A Baseline Survey was conducted by the Research Unit of the College of Social Work, Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai in 2005. This survey revealed a high rate of child malnutrition deaths in one single district namely Palghar in 2005. The other individual and family problems were adolescent marriages and poor reproductive health, lack of education of children, unskilled labour, and lack of local employment opportunities leading to migration.
Professional DHM in social work came to Karajgaon in 2006 to explore the possibilities of service and outreach activities. The focus was the personal, social, educational, economic development of the Warli tribe through vocational and livelihood skills, Self Help Groups, promoting children’s education, health care and opportunities for employment. Hence the Gnanajyoti Community College (GCC) was began in 2013.
Gnanajyoti Community College has been serving the tribal communities of the Palghar district since 2006. The skill-based education has provided the Warli youth to be socially and economically independent and employed through self-employment, in factories in the industrial zone of Maharashtra and Gujarat and in other organizations in the different states in India. Life coping skill sessions have enabled the students to gain self-confidence, motivated them to be proud of the tribal culture and to be informed of the Constitutional values and rights. The training has initiated them to be enthusiastic entrepreneurs in networking with like-minded NGOs, governmental organizations, Zilla Parishad, Ashram school and private schools.
The students of GCC are well versed in marketing, communication skills, budgeting, packing, maintaining records and using social media. GCC has reached out to the economically weaker section of the tribal population and to single parents. Physically challenged students are also encouraged to learn skill-based education. Female tribal youth and staff are inspired to be trained and work in GCC because of the care and protection of the residential facilities available to them.
The students have developed and ecological aptitude because of their participation in cultivating and maintaining herbal and kitchen gardens with seasonal vegetable, fruits, plants and regional food and discouraged from fast food. We hope that the ultimate vision and mission of GCC has actually unleashed the innate potentials of the tribal youth so that they are proud to be intellectually, emotionally, physically and spiritual Indian and world wide citizen to participate and contribute to the well being of our society and the world at large.