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‘Runaway’ tribal children handed over to ‘Childline’

— Photo: Lingaraj Panda

IN SAFE HANDS: The three boys, who had allegedly run away from their hostel at Banpur in Khurda district, at the Child Helpline shelter in Berhampur on Saturday.

BERHAMPUR: Three tribal children from Gajapati district who had ‘ran away’ from their residential school at Banapur in Khurda district were found in Berhampur on Friday night.

It again raised the question whether tribal children should be taught in residential schools in areas which have no link or commonality with their traditional surroundings. The three children, who were handed over to the ‘Childline’ in the city by the police, were studying in class VIII in the Nehru Seva Pratisthan, a residential school at Banapur.

The children were waiting to catch a bus for Mohana at Gate Bazar square. Localites handed them to police and subsequently they reached the ‘Childline’. The coordinator of the ‘Childline’ Prabhu Prasad Patro said that the children were produced before the district Child Welfare Committee on Saturday. As per the direction of the CWC, the parents of these children have been informed and the children would be handed over to them.

The three children were Raja Sulasingh, Mathew Bardhan and Lutun Baliarsingh from Dekapaka village of Mohana block in Gajapati district. They had run way from their residential school and walked up to Balugaon to board a train for Berhampur. According to them low quality food and intolerable behaviour of teachers towards them had compelled them to escape from school.

Although these children hailed from extreme poor families yet they were not at home with the so called better living conditions in their residential school. Raja’s father was a tailor and the parents of Mathew and Lutun were menial labourers working in stone quarries near their village. These three children longed for the hilly terrain surrounding, which they lacked at Banapur. They also added that they were not finding the Oriya dialect of their teachers at Banapur easy to understand.

As per social activists like Mr Patro, it is still not understandable why tribal students were being detached from their own environment by the department of Tribal and Rural Welfare, to be taught in residential schools in coastal region. According to sources there are vacancies in residential schools in Gajapati district itself.

News of students escaping from residential schools due to alleged ill behaviour of staff or bad food is not new. Within the past one year six students of Nehru Seva Pratisthan of Banapur who ran away have been located in Berhampur. Students have also run away en-masse from residential schools in Gajapati, Rayagada and Kandhamal districts. Last year around fifty students had escaped from the hostel of Jopakhal Sevashram School in Rayagada district protesting against low quality of food served to them. Twenty five students of Ashram School of Koinpur in Rayagada Block of Gajapati district had fled from the hostel protesting against their teachers. In July 2007 thirty three students of the residential school for girls at Daringbadi in Kandhamal district had escaped to their homes from their hostel protesting against their teachers. In January 2008 hundred hostel boarders of the residential high school for tribals at Belaghar of Tumudibandha block in Kandhamal district had escaped from the hostel protesting against bad quality of food served to them.

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