Barefoot College - Spreading Light

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!!!

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.

A single batch includes around 30-40 woman from various nations. The classroom bursts with energy of the women who dream of becoming ‘Solar Engineers’. They are excited in meeting so many different people. They learn to accept other’s cultures and traditions. The teachers are locals who have been trained from the college itself . Leela , has formal education only up to 3^rd grade and can speak only Hindi, but she is the one who teaches and verifies the circuit board connections of her international students. The college follows a practical approach of teaching –“Learning by doing and doing by Learning”. Each component is shown to the students and they are asked to repeat after their teacher. This makes it easier for them to understand as well as communicate with the remaining students. As the ladies have to work with small components and readings, they are first given an eye check-up and those who require spectacles are provided with one. They are first taught the basics, and then move on to installation of solar panels. At the end of 5 months, they will have to do their field training. As a part of field training ,they will go to a remote village and solar electrify it.After 6 months they return to their countries and spread light to their villages. 1.6 billion People in the world do not have access to light at night. But this initiative has lightened up so many lives .It has changed the lifestyle in many African countries. Usually people in the African villages are confined to day jobs and they generally do not have sufficient money to buy wood/kerosene. With Solar lamps, they are able to cook food at night, ward away animals and let their kids study at night. It has saved them a lot of money and has increased their overall productivity.

Maybe you could question why the trainers don’t go to these countries and train them? “Anyone who is under pressure and away from the comfort of their villages will learn faster”, say authorities of Barefoot College.Though it took time and patience for the authorities to convince the village heads and husbands to send their women to an unknown country. It also creates an avenue for these distinct cultures to mingle and share.Barefoot college also has other ventures like potable water availability,education and livelihood solutions for the rural crowd.

Barefoot college teaches us two things.First,with proper training anyone can learn ,a five yr old or a fifty yr old.Second ,it shows how flawed our education system is ,producing millions of unemployable graduates every year without being able to exploit the true talents within them.If these solar mamas can spread light,imagine what we could accomplish?

Get a glimpse of Barefoot college here 
http://www.barefootcollege.org/