NGO:  Vanvasi Chetana Ashram

Budget: Rs. 4,50,000 (2008)

Chapters: Boston , Philadelphia, JHU, College Park

Vanvasi Chetana Ashram, a Gandhian organization, has been working with Koya and Gond tribal communities in Dantewara District, Chhattisgarh since 1992 on issues of health, education, watershed, self-help groups, food security, and more recently, peace and civil rights.   The Legal Cell, supported by AID, aims to empower tribal people to defend themselves from state and police abuses.

Increasing violent conflict between the state and Maoist forces has resulted in large scale displacement, arbitrary arrests, and brutality on the part of police and Salwa Judum.  Vanvasi Chetana Ashram has taken up courageous efforts to protect the rights of the tribal people to live in their own homes and travel freely without fear.  The Legal Cell, supported by AID, aims to empower tribal people to defend themselves from state and police abuses. 

Through counseling and awareness, VCA staff will help local people who have suffered violence from the state, police, Special Police Officers (SPO) or Salwa Judum, and who are afraid to file a report with the police or who have unsuccessfully tried to file a report, complete the process and seek justice.  They will help them document evidence of the crime, understand their rights, and accompany them to the court to file the FIR or utilise other available legal mechanisms to secure justice.   In 2008 the VCA helped three tribal widows to document evidence of police having murdered their husbands and presented this evidence before the National Human Rights Council.  They have been able to file an FIR on this and are following the legal process.

VCA hopes that legal means of securing justice, human rights and government services will prevail and empower the people to fight displacement that the state is trying to impose through Salwa Judum and to reclaim their rights to live freely on their own land and resources.