“I belong to the tribal family of Gutti Koyas. We migrated from Chhattisgarh to the forest lands of Bhadradri Kothagudem 20 years ago, with our families. People think that we are completely cut-off from the mainstream society but that’s a misconception. We always respect and treat humans as humans but we want to stay in the forest which we consider as our mother!

Most of the men in our community are dependent on honey gathering and during off-seasons, we go to the nearby villages for the daily wage work.
We are wired since birth to stay intact with the nature but science might be able to help us to coexist with the society. We send our children to schools in the nearby villages and I hope they study well and contribute their bit to the society. We don’t have electricity and we only use kerosene lamps during the night time. But thankfully, government officials have promised to supply solar electricity soon.

This year, due to the corona virus outbreak, there’s absolutely no work for us. As for the honey, the period between April and May is considered the best season to collect minor forest produce, but due to the lockdown restrictions, we already lost the major months of collection. We couldn’t even go out to the nearby villages for daily wage work. The local NGO’s and the government officials have helped us a lot by providing us ration during the lockdown so we were able to sail through the difficult times. I don’t know what the future holds for us but I hope that everything settles down soon.”

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