Living in isolation, makeshift homes, Pernem’s Wanarmare kids struggling to find normalcy | Goa News

Virnoda: Blowing up a balloon for a game on Monday, 22-year-old Ganesh Powar possibly thought of the lost years of his childhood. Ganesh belongs to a very small community of tribals, Kathkari or Wanarmare, identified by Centre as a ‘Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group’. In Goa, they live in two groups — Virnoda in Pernem and Nirankal in Ponda.Ganesh is part of the settlement of 71 people in Virnoda, living in isolation, in makeshift homes on land they do not own. He is the first generation to experience giving up nomadic life. His parents still live without their marriage certificate six children later.On Monday, Ganesh got a rare shot at childhood as he played games with others his age, and children and women from the community, at the sports-cum-Christmas celebration organised in Virnoda by Human Touch Foundation with Chotanagpur Youth Group.“When I was a child, my father roamed around for work and I moved around with him. At the age of 13, I first experienced school with the help of Human Touch Foundation, which helped me get my documents,” said Ganesh, now the first in his community to complete Class X and studying for Class XII. Already the father of a one-year-old child, he wants to make sure his daughter attends school at the age of 5.Today, all the children in the community attend school. But the struggle is far from over. “Despite being notified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group among 75 in the country, Centre did not include the community in Goa; maybe nobody told them,” said Peter Borges of Human Touch Foundation, a child rights advocate. “They are not getting benefits as a result. I wrote to the state tribal welfare department and I am going to meet the tribal affairs minister soon to get the Goan Kathkari included in the notification. They are living in extreme poverty without pucca houses and defecating in the open. The Kathkari families are living a hand-to-mouth existence, working on daily wages, often exploited by being paid meagre sums.“Over the last eight years, we have been working to get them documents. When we first began working with them, many of the children were severely malnourished. We now ensure they have at least two eggs a day. Many of them do not have their marriages registered, for which we need to get them residence certificates. At least the Wanarmare living in Nirankal are residing on comunidade land, here in Virnoda, they are even more vulnerable, being on private land,” said Borges. Another challenge was stopping child marriages in the community, where finding 18-year-old girls with 2 to 3 children is common.“We have to defecate in the open and it is such a danger. At least I was fortunate that the NGO came in in time for me and prevented my marriage in my teens. I will not have to marry until I am 18,” said Rupa Powar, who is studying in Class IX now and dreams of being a teacher.A hospital, though, is still a luxury for the community.“I gave birth to all of my 5 children in the open, and only the sixth one in the North Goa district hospital. I want to make sure all my grandchildren go to school now,” said Mangal Powar, who, like her husband Hanuman, spent most of her childhood as a nomad and did daily-wage jobs as a child.