jenny b

A few weeks ago, I packed three of my Seva Mandir co-workers in a jeep and we headed off to the Barefoot College; a much anticipated trip for us all. We were headed for Tilonia, a small village about 25 kms outside of Ajmer, to see the “truly sustainable” campus for ourselves – and perhaps to find some inspiration (and a partner) for Seva’s new Rural Renewable Energy Programme.

The College is run completely by ‘Barefoot Professionals’ – individuals (many of whom are semi-literate or illiterate) from the very communities in which it works: those villages within 30 kms or so of the 8-acre campus in Tilonia. This is the only way, according to the Barefoot Philosophy, any development activity can be successful or sustainable – beneficiaries must be those that own and manage the design and process.

This is a common theory in many development organizations, one that has actually become a bit of jargon. Here in India it is attached to Gandhiji and organizations who “follow” this ideal are called ‘Gandhian’. Seva Mandir is a Gandhian organization and from my experience, by and large, they really mean it. Barefoot College, however, is the only organization I’ve seen that truly, to the core, walks the walk. At an impressive stride and swagger.

Everyone working within the campus is a local. Everyone. And anyone is eligible for a staff postition – regardless of race, caste, or gender – a radicle practice in a land where the caste system is not supposed to be, but is still alive and well (though many urban areas are seeing less of these divides, the practice is certainly still prevalent in rural areas).

Equally as impressive, the 8-acre campus is run entirely on solar power. There are three power plants, each connected to a series of solar panels that send the day’s sun energy to a cadre of batteries. All of the campus’ buildings were designed and built by local Barefoot “architects” and “engineers,” using local traditional building practices and materials.

Every building has a system for collecting and diverting rainwater runoff to an underground water tank with the capacity of just over 100,000 gallons. The tank was constructed under an amphitheater, cleverly and efficiently utilizing space. Overflow from the tank is directed to open wells that collect additional monsoon runoff from the hills that immediately surround the campus. This system not only collects water, a precious commodity in this increasingly drought-prone region, but also helps to reduce the sometimes devastating effects of soil erosion.

One of the College’s most impressive programs, and the impetus for our visit is a solar training program that after 6 months, sends home skilled ‘Barefoot Solar Engineers.’ Participants are selected and supported (financially) by their entire village who democratically agreed that solar energy was a necessary solution for their community.

Fledgling engineers – again typically illiterate, with few livelihood options – come from rural villages with no electrification and also from all over the country and world. Participants are trained “to understand and identify basic electrical terms, components and equipment. They learn to assemble and fabricate circuits and solar lanterns, solar lamps, charge controllers, choke coils and transformers, and learn to correctly connect modules, batteries, lamps and charge controllers. Barefoot College strives to make every trainee capable enough to confidently and independently install, test, repair and maintain fixed solar lighting units, and solar lanterns.”

Most students in this program are the poorest of the poor, not even eligible for the lowest government job, thus this is a valuable employment training for them. As they are selected by community consensus, the program encourages communities to choose people who have their roots in the village and will stay and work there for its development rather than migrate to a city soon after training.

We came to see the operation in action, hoping to utilize the College’s well-established and proven successful training program for our youth entrepreneurs. Turns out they have quite a long waiting list (go figure!) but we learned a lot from our visit and will certainly continue to stay in touch with them as we move our program forward.

Following our introduction to the solar training center, we spent the rest of our afternoon touring the truly impressive campus, being introduced to their many interesting and exciting programs.

For example, they train villagers with physical disabilities to make small radios to sell in the surrounding villages. They also have an on-site radio station from where they broadcast 6 hours of daily local programming. We felt lucky to walk into the recording studio in time to hear a group of talented kids who were recording several traditional tunes for a future broadcast.

The College has a number of national and international funders and partners that help to make their many programs successful. We met a few lovely ladies that had been trained to perform basic dentistry and medical services to the area’s residents.

I think we all found the solar cookers to be pretty impressive, as well as the ‘Women Barefoot Solar Cooker Engineers Society,’ who are the “first registered association of semi-literate and literate women who complete the full fabrication and production of the parabolic solar cookers.”

Though simple to maintain and use, these cookers have a fairly sophisticated built-in spring and clock system that in one rotation (every 3 min, 23 sec) functions to rotate the cooker to track the sun automatically. Unsurprisingly, the construction of the cookers requires high accuracy and skill in metal crafts(wo)menship. All materials are fabricated on site. Damned impressive.

So far, the ladies have installed their masterpieces in 9 villages, thus reaching 200 people. They offer a day-long training to all households purchasing a cooker, teaching installation, usage and maintenance basics.

One of my favorite things of the day was the puppet room. The College has many programs to celebrate and keep alive traditional arts and crafts and puppetry is an age-old method of educating and entertaining the public. The College honors this tradition by training puppeteers who regularly perform with their masterpieces around the region.

I wanted to stay much, much longer in this room then we were able. So much to capture! A few of my favorites:

Barefoot’s several craft-based programs recognize that increased migration threatens the longevity of traditional handicrafts and arts. Aging artistans often worry over who will carry on their heritage as more and more youth move to urban areas looking for a better life – tragically they often end up stuck in the slums of their big city refuge.

The College celebrates and honors those important traditions by helping to train the next generation and by providing channels to make a profitable livelihood from them. There are a multitude of facilities on-site to teach and produce an array of crafts. They also manage a successful on-site store and export program that ships clothing and accessories, decorative home furnishings, furniture, rugs, textiles, handmade paper products, puppets, educational toys, metalwork, and leather goods all around the world. Whew!

Next to the puppets, this room of all things recycled was by far my favorite. So many creative and fun things to look at and play with!

Whew! What a day that was. We may have been exhausted by the end of it – each of us in disbelief at the magnitude and multitude of Barefoot’s programs and successes – but we were equally inspired by what was possible by creative and determined people. We talked about it for days and bragged the Barefoot model to many a friend.