Issues of alcoholism dependence among tribes: how Koraga tribal population of Kerala find their everyday life

Abstract

Healthy Youth with sound mind and body is indeed could be of a catalyst for the uplift of socio-economic spheres of a geographical area and a greater asset for the nation in the process of its building. It is not alien that this population come under the enormous pressure of the substance abuse in the forms varied. Here the focus is on tribal youth who cannot be left behind in the race of youth welfare both in policies and practices. It cannot go well when the already aspiring population of tribe’s venture into the serious health marring activities in the forms of drugs and alcohols. Koraga is a PVTG tribe who lags far behind in many socio economic and health indices, whose case is an alarming tipping point inn this aspect. This study is descriptive in nature and conducted in Kasaragod district of Kerala at the different hamlets of Kasaragod and Manjeshwar talukas with case studies of 10 families and simple random sampling of 40 respondents with the help of unstructured interview schedule. Finding of the study shows that  the population is majorly concentrated in more than 40 different hamlets crisscrossing the two given talukas, substance abuse is prevalent in the hamlets which puts them in serious health related issues with the consequences resulted in many psycho social issues and loss of productive man hours and even leads to suicide among youth. It also stresses the importance of the interventions to address the malaise which otherwise has the potential to put them in larger risks and make them more vulnerable than they are now.