Shevaroyhills Tribal Development Institute (STDi)

Shevaroyhills Tribal Development Institute (STDVi) is an organization established under ‘the Yercaud Salesian College Society’ (the Retreat, Yercaud as it is popularly known) with a resolution passed on 27 September 2018. The aim of the Institute is to concretize and expand the already existing community development programs and initiatives and to establish a system which would cater to the developmental needs and aspirations of Tribal community in Shevaroy hills with a sustainable and holistic approach.

Initiatives of Shevaroyhills Tribal Development Institute (STDi)

SOTCHO – Sola Tribal Children’s Home

SOTCHO is a boarding home for the Tribal children in and around the villages of Yercaud. The home is established with the objective of providing accommodation, food and education to the poor tribal children hailing from the remotest of villages that lack the proper infrastructure for education, as they had to travel a long distance to attend school. Due to these factors, the dropout rates were high among the tribal children.

After School Coaching Centres

Tribal children most of them being first generation learners, are quite slow learners and take time to grasp and understand the concepts of conventional, mainstream education. They need additional attention, care and different pedagogy as to the conventional teaching methods. Also, most of the tribal households manage with basic electricity and children are mostly left in dark without anyone to teach. These factors gave rise to After School Coaching Centres or simply called Night Schools, where the tribal children are given, after-school coaching on difficult subjects such as Mathematics, Science and English.

Youth Development Programs

With an objective of neighbourhood youth development thereby contributing to getter community engagement and development. As part of the Youth Development Programs, the students of philosophy visit the villages in the weekend and undertake developmental activities for the young people in those villages. They have established community youth groups called “Oratories”. Animations and Games/Sports competitions and animations are held to engage the tribal youth round the year.

Don Bosco Eco Clubs & Eco Villages

Don Bosco Eco Clubs is one of our community engagement programs, where we establish Eco Clubs among the children and ecovillages in the villages.

Organic Kitchen Garden (OKG) for Women Groups

We train 150 women from 9 panchayats of the hills in Organic Kitchen Garden and develop them as Self Help Groups creating awareness, training, empowerment and livelihood programmes. We are connected to over 1500 women from the hills.