L. Mallikharjuna Rao The photos are of two of participants, Kuncham Chalapati Rao and Gunja Bhimanna of ‘Thamarada’ tribal village (Visakhapatnam District, AP) explaining how they are using learnt reading and writing skills in post literacy training programme in the time of my field visit on 27/01/2009 to make a case study. Adults from Tamarada village heard about Laya 10 day literacy programme, they would like to participate in the literacy programme; The purpose of their interest towards literacy is to enable their capacities in terms of understanding reading and writing skills for playing of songs on musical instruments taken up as an occupation is called “Band Melam”. Keeping in view of their interest, the literacy programme was conducted in their village rather then calling them to the training centre; the entire villagers including women were participated in the programme and got good result. I participated as trainer in that literacy programme; A community reading centre was developed there by the Documentation Unit during post training programme, in the follow up action when I was observed that they have very much interest in it; Necessary reading material is time to time circulating to the villagers by the unit. My name is L. Mallikharjuna Rao, generally called by my colleagues is Mallik I am working with an NGO called Laya, based at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. It has been working with indigenous communities since ‘Laya’ means ‘rhythm’ signifying the core identity of indigenous communities. We, the team of Laya, believe in development which takes into account the traditional wisdom and vision of a society which incorporates sustainability with equity. Human rights issues, empowering indigenous community representatives and creating alternatives at the grassroots level are our main focus. I am 40 years old. I started my career as a Part time lecturer in a college, worked for two years and then joined in Laya. I have 12 years experience in this developmental field. At present playing a role as a coordinator for the documentation unit. The overall objective of the unit is to develop relevant alternative database to add value to micro involvement and policy issues. I am coordinating the documentation practices and needs of the units of Laya; providing training to the require staff on process of documentation as a member of a team, assisting in various training programs like “Education, Leadership and Empowerment”. Apart from that contributing my services as facilitator/resource person for the youth centered training programs, literacy for leadership skill development training programs for adults and for communication skills/documentation skills. I do translation works, edit books for publication: I am also an Editorial team member for the organization’s magazine ‘Mannemlo’ (In agency). I am expecting that this training enable me to focus on our efforts to enhance the leadership potential among indigenous people and strengthen my present working skills.