Help Korku Tribal Children in Melghat Learn in Their Mother Tongue

87% of children here can't read. Kumkum can now. Help the rest.

Kumkum is a Korku tribal girl from Melghat. In Grade 3 she couldn't read a single word of her first storybook, because school was in a language she didn't speak at home. Three years later, she performed that story for her whole village. Help us give more Korku children the same journey.

In 2023, a colourful storybook arrived in Patkahu, a small village inside the Melghat Tiger Reserve in Amravati, Maharashtra.

Kumkum, then in Grade 3, was thrilled. She looked at the pictures. She turned every page. She wanted to know what happened.

But she couldn't read the words.

Kumkum's mother tongue is Korku. Her school taught in Marathi. So before she could learn to read, she had to learn to read in a language nobody spoke in her home. For a nine-year-old, that is not a small gap. It is the whole difference between a child who learns and a child who stops trying.

She was not alone. Nearly 87% of the children we work with in Melghat struggle with foundational learning, and the language barrier is one of the biggest reasons why.

Kumkum's story didn't end at the pictures.

At Dostighar, our community learning centres, children learn through stories and activities in Korku first, then Marathi, Hindi and English. The words that once seemed impossible began to make sense, one story at a time.

Three years later, Kumkum is in Grade 6. She reads. She understands. And last Children's Day, she and her friends took a story they had learned and performed it as a play for their own community.

The girl who could only look at the pictures was now reading the story, understanding it, and bringing it to life for others.

That is what foundational learning does. It turns a listener into a reader, and a reader into a storyteller.

Why it matters

Melghat is one of the most remote regions in Maharashtra. Korku families here face child malnutrition, infant mortality, and schools that teach in a language their children don't speak. When a child falls behind in Grade 1 or 2, she rarely catches up. She drops out, and the cycle continues.

We believe the answer lives in the community itself. Sadaya Foundation trains local Korku youth to become Dostighar fellows, young leaders who work with children, families, schools and Anganwadis in their own villages. They speak the language. They know the families. They stay.

Today the programme reaches over 800 children across 8 villages, through in-school support, digital literacy, and early childhood work in Anganwadis.

Help us create this journey for more Korku children.

There are thousands of children in Melghat holding storybooks they cannot read yet. With your help, they will.

About Sadaya Foundation

Sadaya Rural Upgrowth Foundation is a Section 8 non-profit working for the holistic development of Korku tribal children aged 0 to 18 in the core and remote villages of the Melghat Tiger Reserve, Amravati district, Maharashtra. We focus on child health and nutrition, school readiness, and foundational literacy and numeracy through mother-tongue-based learning, all led by young people from the Korku community itself.

Our Approach

Sadaya Foundation believes that local Korku youth can become powerful leaders in transforming their own communities. We nurture and develop young people from the Melghat region to work closely with children, families, schools, and the wider community.

Through this community-led approach, we work to:

• Improve children’s health and nutrition.

• Prepare young children for a smooth transition into school.

• Strengthen Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) through mother-tongue-based learning.

• Build awareness among parents and communities about children’s health, education, and development.

Our aim is to build a strong local system where Korku youth take leadership, communities participate, and children get the support they need to learn, grow, and live with dignity.