Bengaluru: The TCS World 10k, which will happen in Bengaluru on May 17, has a very special participant this year. Shanta P Dodmani will run the 10k on Sunday, becoming the first ever from the Siddi tribal community. About one-third of the Siddi population lives in Karnataka, centered around Uttara Kannada in Yellapur, Haliyal, Ankola and Joida. They are an agricultural tribe, in essence, but poverty and hardship have forced a large number of these people into daily wage labour.
Shanta Pedru Dodmani is 25 years old and has already grown to become a beacon of hope for her community. “My parents and my older brother do coolie work, but I wanted to study,” she said. “They struggled to put the money together, but they came through for me.”
Armed with a Masters’ Degree in Social Work from Rani Chennamma College, Shanta returned to her hometown with the intention of uplifting her people. “I worked with an NGO named Sambudhi for a year and then came home. After that, I heard another NGO, CherYsh, was looking for a tribal woman with a degree in Social Work, to work with people at the grassroots level.”
Education, she says, is the biggest problem within the community. “A lot of my community members are interested in academics and others are outstanding athletes, but opportunities are hard to come by,” she said. Circumstances force children to drop out of school and join their parents in coolie work or small-scale agriculture.
“Another problem was that there was nobody to help and encourage those who were determined to study,” she said. That became Shanta's first project with her community.
She picked out the brightest young girls and trained them, so they could go back and help their friends and neighbours. “We give them tuitions and even career counselling. If someone wants to study, we stand by them every step of the way.”
Meanwhile, the CherYsh community kitchens delivered an order of 100 kilos of sambar powder to the Akshaya Patra Foundation. “They supply free mid-day meals to school children in rural areas and it was very difficult for them to deliver meals on time. They also wanted home-cooked food, that was not too spicy,” said Shanta.
Making and delivering this powder involves a huge amount of travel - the Siddis have to go all the way to Hubli everyday. “I want to raise funds to improve the infrastructure of our kitchens, so that we can make everything at home and have it delivered,” she said. The marathon seemed the perfect way to raise funds. Shanta had always been interested in sport, but her dreams were put on hold.
“I couldn't get support,” she said. For the last twenty days, Shanta has been putting herself through a rigorous training process, which involves four hours of practice everyday. "I start training at 5 am and go on till 7 am,” she said. "I had to work on my speed and my stamina, so I would repeat the process in the evenings. There is no training as such, but my family and my community are really pitching in to help. I couldn't have got so far without my mother, she wakes me up every morning and if I can't handle my work as well, she pitches in.”
Right now, even with the money they earn from supplying to the Akshaya Patra Foundation, most members of the Siddi tribe in Haliyur survive on Rs 100 a day. “They have to manage their food, their children's education and pay their bills with this income,” she said. “You and I both know it's impossible to do,” she said, clearly overwhelmed by the attention she has been getting because of the marathon. “If I can raise the money, I will be able to give my community a better life.”
