Dr. Roopa Devadasan: Health in India

Dr. Roopa Devadasan, or Roopa as she is popularly known, is a graduate of Christian Medical College, Vellore, one of the countrys premier medical colleges. She specialised in Community Health and started the Community Health programme for adivasi people in the Gudalur Valley (ACCORD). Roopa and her husband Deva produced a unique and unbelievable programme, working from scratch at a grassroots level, and radically transforming the health status of the local population from a scenario where people ran in terror at the mention of hospital, to a point where maternal and infant mortality reached well below the national average figure. All this in around 5 years.

After 7 years of working with adivasis in Gudalur, Roopa did a post graduate degree in Community Health from Antwerp Belgium where she topped her class and received a special award. Subsequently she developed an interest in holistic medicine and health and teaches yoga and practises reiki.

Ms. Anita Varghese: Environment

(In her own words): After my graduation in Zoology from Bombay University, I did my Masters in Ecology from Pondicherry University. I did a specialisation in Human Ecology, which bought me closer to the issues of forest dependent communities. I worked as a research assistant with the French Institute at Pondicherry. I worked with an ethnobotanist and spent time with adivasi and settler communities in Karnataka and Attapady. I moved to the University of Bombay to work on a project dealing with the state forests and the paper industry. This study took me to many forest areas of the country especially the North East.

I settled down at the project in Gudalur and was there for eight years. In the initial years I looked at the possibility of developing a JFM project but I took on a documentation of the culture of the four main tribal groups of the area.

I have now moved to the Keystone Foundation which works in the Nilgiris on ecological and development issues for the indigenous people of the area. We are based in Kotagiri. I am the field co-ordinator on the Non Timber Forest Produce project.

Mr. B. Ramdas: Education

Starting out as a politically active student at Loyola College in Madras, Mr. Ramdas has done a number of interesting things. He took a degree in Law, did a stint as a journalist, was part of the CIDRA team a well known research and training organisation in the 70s and finally landed up in Pondicherry, where along with his wife Ms Rama Sastry and other friends, they set up the Sathyalayam School for slum children. He also ran a printing press to help fund the school. Over the years, graduates of the school became teachers and local people took over the running of the school. In the early 90s Ramdas landed up in Gudalur, his hometown and joined the ACCORD team, to initiate a number of unique interventions in the field of education including founding the Vishwa Bharathi Vidyodaya Trust which runs the Vidyodaya School an alternative school for tribal children.

Ms. Rama Sastry: Education

Ms. Rama Sastry started out her career as a laboratory technologist but moved into education along with her husband Ramdas when they set up the school in Pondicherry. She is an educationist par excellence indefatigable in her pursuit to provide quality education to young children. She has been the person behind Vidyodaya School playing a number of roles simultaneously! She has helped train a number of young tribals as teachers who now work with their own community. Rama is in great demand as a trainer of teachers from a number of schools. Both she and her husband have initiated a network of alternative schools across the country and are pioneering an effort to develop small schools.

Mr. Henri Tiphagne: Human rights and the Law

Mr.Henri Tiphagne also started his political training as a student leader. He is the founder of Peoples Watch, an advocacy and Human Rights organisation fighting for dalits, women, adivasis and other poor people. Henri is another well known national figure on the Human Rights front. He has acquired an international profile recently because of his work on the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights leading from his home territory of Tamil Nadu all the way to Geneva and Durban.

Mr. Joy Maliekal: Children and Urban Poor

Mr. Joy Maliekal has worked for the last 25 years on development issues starting with slum dwellers and urban poor in Bombay in the 70s. He moved to Mysore and founded RHLP (Rural Health and Literacy project) which works in several districts of Karnataka. He has focussed on the Child Labour issue and works on this at a National level. He is the National Convenor of the Campaign against Child Labour.

Mr. Brij Bhasin: Craft in India

Mr. Brij Bhasin is a Renaissance man -of many parts and of amazingly varied talents. He has switched careers, moving from the Army to the IPS to the IAS. He is a highly skilled classical dancer and a singer and musician. During his IAS tenure he decided to revitalise the Indian crafts scene. He revamped the Cottage Industries shops and brought in skilled craftspeople from all over India. He played a crucial role in transforming the Green Hotel from a fairly decrepit dump to its present refurbished state.

Donna Fernandes: Womens Rights

Ms. Donna Fernandes is a key figure in the Indian womens movement. She has worked on gender issues for over 20 years and is one of the founding members of Vimochana, THE most prominent womens organisation in Bangalore. Donna has covered issues ranging from violence against women, to problems of rural and urban women, to the girl child, female infanticide, trafficking, dowry deaths, domestic workers problems. She has travelled the length and breadth of India raising awareness on womens issues. She is also known in the international womens movement for her passionate and totally committed approach to fighting for womens rights.

Dr. Basavaraj: Food Security