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Aruna Tirkey (Rural Development professional)
Ms. Aruna Tirkey graduated as a Rural Development Professional from the Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS) in the year 1999. She has extensive experience of working at different levels and capacities ranging from hardcore grassroot mobilization, policy and program management and research. Her more than 15 years of professional career spanned around working on issues related to community health, women empowerment, natural resource management, livelihood development, and forest rights under the Forest Rights Act, of 2006. She has extensive experience in working with non-profit organizations, government agencies, bilateral projects, and international organizations. A few key professional engagements include the Swa-Shakti Project, the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS) under National Rural Livelihood Mission and research on forest-based livelihood and tribal food nutrition.
Apart from being a committed Rural Development professional, she is a connoisseur of tribal food and cuisine. She stands out for her remarkable initiative on tribal food revival in Jharkhand which she visualizes as a means to strengthen tribal identity and culture that is fast disintegrating. Her food revival mission is named as Ajam Emba (in Kudukh language spoken by Oraon tribe meaning ‘great taste’). She runs her initiative in the mode of for-profit social enterprise and have founded a private limited company with the same name. Belonging to Oraon community, she is possibly one of the first women tribal entrepreneurs in the region. As a part of her food revival initiative, she has established a first of its kind tribal cuisine restaurant and training centre based at Ranchi, Jharkhand.
Her motivation to work on tribal food revival has been a combination of both professional and personal experiences. The professional journey took her to places in tribal heartlands that exposed her to the gradual decline of local food systems and culture, rights deprivation, and livelihood insecurity. Having grown up in a large family where tribal customs and traditions were well protected and respected and local food practices were followed, experience the decline in local food systems and culture was deeply disturbing for her.The idea to take tribal food revival came when she won first prize at tribal food cooking competition at the Adi Samagam program organized by the Department of Welfare (GoJ) and the Indian Chamber of Commerce in 2016.
She initially started with participating in different food stalls at exhibitions and fairs which received overwhelming response from cross-section of society and the demand to present such foods grew. Thus, began her entrepreneurial journey. Her initiative is not just limited to serving food through the restaurant, rather she works to promote women entrepreneurs, support farmers involved in cultivation of traditional crops like millets and NTFP collectors by procuring their produce at improved prices and promote food education.
Through her venture she is working to directly benefit more than 100 tribal women and around 5000 farmers and forest produce collectors and have so far exposed local food of Jharkhand to around 35000 people including at local, national and international level. She also founded the Jharkhand Slow Food community as a part of International Slow Food Association for education and awareness building on importance of tribal food systems as healthy alternative for society and in achieving climate-friendly development through promotion of sustainable food systems. She has presented tribal food of Jharkhand in prestigious national events like International Film Festival at Goa (2018), International Bamboo Festival at Dumka, Jharkhand (2019) and deliberated about local food traditions of Jharkhand in the international Terra Madre event organized at Sapporo, Japan by the Internal Slow Food International before a 500 plus delegate representing from more than 200 countries around the world.
Aruna continues to nurture deep commitment towards the cause of rural development and tribal empowerment which is truly reflected in her current venture where she blends food revival initiatives with employment, livelihood security and environment development possibilities.
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