Narayanpur Workshop – Day Three

To engage the people that need it most, CGNet holds workshops all over Central India. CGNet can often be difficult to understand, so it is important to train people who can act as ambassadors and correspondents into the future. This series of blog posts will follow three workshops held in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh to give you an insight into how we work.

Morning at the lake by Gondwana Bhavan, the location of our Narayanpur workshop

Today began, naturally, with a dance.

Charan Singh Parthe (he has the drum) leads the morning dance

 After that, everyone returned to the groups from yesterday to practice using the CGNet Swara service. Each group had a CGNet worker who talked everyone through the system (the kinds of community oriented problems that CGNet is designed for, the standard way that callers identify themselves over the phone, introduction to the automated recording server) and everybody got a turn making their own recordings.

CGNet worker Harshit Charles photographs a working group

 At the end of the day everybody stood up and reintroduced themselves and talked about what they had done. It was remarkable to compare today with the introductions just two days ago: everyone’s shyness had been almost completely replaced by smiles.

Today also gave us a brief opportunity to explore Narayanpur. Across the town is a government institute for the preservation of Tribal culture, and hosts adivasi artists and handicraft workers and gives them a space so that their work can be studied and protected. 

These women are Maria Gonds from Narayanpur District who arrived at the centre five years ago after Maoist-related violence in the area forced them from their villages. 

 

It is impossible to ignore the sensitive security situation in Narayanpur. From the fortified compounds of Government and Police officials to the huge mine-proof vehicles and heavily armed (and startlingly young) civilian militia members that idle along the main road, it is immediately obvious that this is not a normal town. 

None of this, however, prevents CGNet from reaching out to the people who live in this district. In fact, the disruptions and chaos of these circumstances make it even more pressing that these places – places often hidden by the ‘warzone’ headlines in mainstream news – be given a chance to air their own voices.