Two girls from the Union Territory of Ladakh are among eight tribals who have been conferred Samvaad Fellowship 22 by the Jamshedpur-based Tata Steel Foundation’s Samvaad.

Sarah Batool and Rashida Kousar, received the prestigious Samvaad Fellowship. This is the first time that the coveted fellowship was conferred on girls from Ladakh.

Sara Batool from Turtuk along the LOC represents the Balti tribe of Ladakh. She will work on the “revival and preservation of ethnic Balti cuisine in Ladakh”.

Similarly, Rashida Kousar’s proposed area of research is “Study of Traditional kitchen (Thab-tshang/Byan-sa) and ethnic foods in Ladakh”.

This year drew more than 2,000 participants of 200 tribes from 23 states and four union territories. Outstanding tribal artists, healers, home cooks, cultural crusaders, experts, and leaders from various tribal communities around the country are among the participants.

In an era of rapid development and industrialisation, Samvaad, which is observed since 2014, has developed into an ecosystem where tribal tribes from throughout the nation come together to celebrate their cultures and start discussions about issues that are important to their communities.

Over the past five years, the Samvaad Fellowship has been conferred to 30 fellows from 13 states and 27 tribes in India. This year, the organizers received 176 applications from 68 tribes throughout 22 states and 3 UTs. These applications were scrutinized and evaluated internally, after which 28 of them were given to the jury members, who scored them and chose the top 18 to present their projects to the panel. Eight candidates have been chosen by the jury members after two days of pitches.

The Samvaad Fellowship is an initiative that was launched in 2017 to address one of the ecosystem’s core objectives “to document and hence, preserve a body of knowledge and a world view that runs the risk of being obliterated”. The Fellowship envisions supporting initiatives and ideas which are aligned towards conservation of lesser-known indigenous practices from tribal cultures which are vulnerable and are not part of a large conservation effort and thus run the risk of being lost.

Dr. Sonam Wangchok, founder of the Himalayan Cultural Heritage Foundation (HCHF) and one of the jury members for the Samvaad Fellowship, has thanked the Tata Steel Foundation for establishing the fellowship in order to inspire youth from tribal communities to work for the urgent  need of revitalizing, preserving, and promoting their cultural and natural heritage.