In Odisha’s remote Malkangiri district, indigenous journalist Jayanti Buruda has emerged as one of the most prominent grassroots media voices from tribal India. Belonging to the Koya community, she overcame social resistance to pursue journalism and later returned to her region to document underreported tribal realities.
Through her platform Jungle Rani, she trains tribal women to report stories in their own languages, focusing on forests, livelihoods, rights, and local governance. In 2018, she founded the Bada Didi Union, a women-led collective working on girls’ education, menstrual health, and awareness around child marriage, now supported by over 100 volunteers.
Her work has been nationally recognised, including a feature in the Forbes India W-Power 2024 list. Alongside her activism, she has also become the guardian of 15 abandoned girls she encountered during field reporting, raising them as a single mother while ensuring their education and care.
Tribal Voice Reshaping Odisha Journalism
In the deeply forested and often overlooked district of Malkangiri in Odisha, journalist Jayanti Buruda is redefining what grassroots journalism looks like in India. Belonging to the Koya tribal community, Buruda grew up in an environment where access to education and media representation was extremely limited. Despite resistance from her family and social constraints that often restrict women from stepping into public-facing professions, she pursued journalism with determination.
Her entry into media was not just a personal achievement but a structural challenge to the absence of tribal voices in mainstream reporting. Early in her career, she observed that stories from Malkangiri and surrounding tribal regions were either missing from national narratives or told through external perspectives that often lacked cultural understanding. This gap became the foundation of her work.
Rather than remaining within mainstream media structures, Buruda returned to her community and established Jungle Rani, a platform dedicated to enabling tribal women to become storytellers themselves. The initiative trains women in basic journalism, including mobile reporting, photography, and video documentation, allowing them to report on issues affecting their own villages in their native languages. This approach has helped shift the narrative from external observation to internal representation, giving communities ownership over their stories.
Building Grassroots Institutions for Dignity
Beyond journalism, Buruda expanded her work into structured community action through the founding of the Bada Didi Union in 2018. The collective focuses on issues that disproportionately affect young girls and women in tribal areas, including access to education, menstrual hygiene, and early marriage prevention.
Operating with a network of over 100 volunteers, the initiative conducts awareness sessions in remote villages, distributes menstrual hygiene products, and engages families on the importance of continuing girls’ education. In regions where infrastructure is weak and social norms often limit girls’ mobility, such interventions have played a crucial role in shifting attitudes at the community level.
The collective also supports informal learning spaces and local resource groups, helping girls stay connected to education systems even when formal schooling becomes difficult due to distance or economic pressure.
According to civil society accounts and media reports, the initiative has gradually built trust within communities, particularly among families who were initially hesitant to engage with external interventions on sensitive issues like menstruation and child marriage.
Buruda’s work through both Jungle Rani and Bada Didi Union reflects a broader model of community-led development, where communication, education, and activism operate together rather than in isolation.
From Journalist to Caregiving Guardian
While documenting stories in tribal regions, Buruda encountered several cases of abandoned and vulnerable children who had no stable family support or access to formal care systems. These encounters profoundly changed the trajectory of her life. Instead of limiting her involvement to reporting these cases, she chose to take direct responsibility for them.
Over time, she became the guardian of 15 abandoned girls, raising them as a single mother. This decision transformed her role from observer to caregiver, blurring the lines between journalism and lived activism. She ensured that the children received access to education, shelter, and emotional care, often balancing her professional work with significant personal responsibilities.
Her caregiving journey highlights the gaps in social protection systems in remote regions, where vulnerable children often fall outside formal institutional care. It also reflects the depth of her commitment to her community, extending beyond storytelling into direct intervention in people’s lives.
Buruda’s efforts have received national attention, including her recognition in the Forbes India W-Power 2024 list, which honours women making impactful contributions across sectors. This recognition brought wider visibility to her work but also underscored the broader issue of representation both in media and in social development spaces.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Jayanti Buruda’s journey is a powerful reminder that journalism, at its most meaningful, is not just about reporting events but about shifting who gets to be seen, heard, and empowered. In regions like Malkangiri, where geographic isolation and structural inequality have long limited representation, her work demonstrates how storytelling can become a tool for dignity and self-determination.
What makes her model particularly significant is its emphasis on participation rather than observation. By training tribal women to report their own stories, she challenges long-standing hierarchies in media representation. At the same time, her work through Bada Didi Union shows how journalism and social activism can reinforce each other when rooted in lived experience.
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