I was zapping channels, disappointed and demotivated at
life. Even my favourite channels didn't have anything to enlighten me .Suddenly,
I stumbled upon a program on a channel I rarely visit –The great DoorDharshan.
But the story was a great one!! It just took a few
illiterate women to instil a confidence in me and make me feel better.
The program takes us to the village of Tilonia, a remote
village in Rajasthan close to Ajmer. A group of illiterate and semi –literate
women from different countries in Africa were being taken to Tilonia .They
understand and speak broken English and the rest of the conversation with the college folks includes just signs and gestures. They have left their families and villages to come to India
and start their new careers. They have come to become ENGINEERS!!!
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| Solar Electrification classroom |
Barefoot college, Tilonia is a college run by NGO -Bunker
Roy, to help people from underdeveloped countries to become self-sustainable
and independent .The aim of this initiative is to utilize the skills and talents
available in the village rather than depending on the urban crowd.One of the
initiative includes a 6 month course
where women between the age of 35-50(They are called grandmamas or mamas) are
invited to India to study solar electrification. And to return to their
homelands to help light their villages!! Can you believe it? A bunch of women
who don’t even know to read and write are going to light up a village! The next
surprise element would be that the teachers and students do not have a common
language that both groups understand!!How do you expect to teach a group about
resistance, capacitance, transformers, voltage, diodes and resistors without a
language they can understand!! And for 6 long months!!Well, the people at
Barefoot College have made it happen and they have helped light up 4,50,000
villages around the world.
