Ramesh Parmar, 18, has seen quite a bit of life for his age. In his native village at Chuli in Dhrangadhra block of Surendranagar District, he has worked as a mason for a while apart from lending a hand once in a while to his family profession of scavenging. He has skinned dead animals, chopped them to pieces and lived on them.

Now that he is attending a course for tailoring at the Dalit Shakti Kendra at Nani Devti village, he looks forward to a more dignified life, albeit away from his roots and family. "My brother and sister are still continuing with the profession, but I would much rather start a shop or join one in Ahmedabad," he says. "I may give up the profession, but it is difficult for my family to do so," he says.

Dhaval Vaghela from Sanand village or Jaya Jhala from Kochda village in Patdi block of Surendranagar, who are being trained in videography and tailoring respectively, also voice similar concerns. While both belonging to the Valmiki community are convinced of their own future free from scavenging due to these vocational trainings, when it comes to their families, they are not very certain.

"Vadlav chhe pan ochhu chhe (there is change, but very little)," says Jaya, whose parents back home are still engaged in scavenging.

Even when manual scavenging is legally forbidden, members of the Valmiki community find it difficult to stay in their native villages after discarding their traditional occupation. Dalit Shakti Kendra, which since the late nineties has been running several vocational courses to socio-economically empower the dalits in the state, face this unique problem of students from these communities leaving the courses half-way due to community pressure.

"The problem with students from the Valmiki community is that once they give up their tradition, they do not find a livelihood in their villages," says Jayesh Parmar from the Dalit Shakti Kendra, adding that while the dominant upper castes do not officially declare a social boycott, they do ensure the total stopping of livelihood support to the Valmiki families.

The organisation, which works across about 3,000 villages in Gujarat, has so far, trained about 2,800 dalit students in various areas like driving, tailoring, photography and computer. Initially it had started with only one course, way back in 1999, with an objective to give an alternative livelihood to these people.

"With the training I am getting here, I hope to make about Rs 5000 to 6000 a month," says Dhaval, but asked about whether he can do it in his villages, discomfort start showing on his face.

"This is a sad reality," says Martin Macwan, director of Navsarjan and Dalit Shakti Kendra. "The native prejudices are very strong and would not allow a person from a particular community to change his traditional, caste-based profession and stay in the same village," he adds.

"The rot runs much deeper. Even if you look at the structure of the Social Justice Committee prescribed by the Panchayat Act, which is to be headed by either a dalit or a tribal, one of the jobs assigned to the committee is to manage the disposal of dead animals. The bias is too deep and its perpetuation is meticulously planned," Macwan adds.