Barefoot College; learning a different way

The meaning of these words was reflected all around us as we took in Barefoot College last week in Rajasthan, which lies in Tillonia, on the route between Beawar and Jaipur. This is one of eighteen such colleges dotted across India, which aims to better the lives of the poorest of the rural poor around the world through practical education and skill transfer. This includes skills such as solar power generation, water harvesting, health and sanitation, housing, income generation and ecological conservation.

As with everything about the work of this enterprise, it is understated, yet incredibly powerful. I met Rose, a lady from Uganda, who told me that she had been sent here for the six month training, as she built a solar lantern battery in front of my eyes. Each circuit and connection was familiar to her, and mirrored by a colour coded pattern on the wall so that people of all languages could learn this skill. In her village they have no light, and she was very excited to take this skill back home. In addition to the training that these entrepreneurs receive at Barefoot, they are also provided with the initial technology materials when the go back home to start them off on their enterprise.

As I walked around this workshop, I met women from not only India, but Bhutan, Uganda, Bolivia, China, Afghanistan, and many more countries around the world.

The criteria to be a Barefoot student are very specific; you live in poverty, you are illiterate and that you are a female mother or grandmother. The college goes further still, describing people who should participate as;

·         Those who are drop outs, cop outs, wash outs and rejected by society because they cannot pass an exam and show a degree next to their name.

·         And those who have no possibility of getting the lowest of the low government job. They have no choice but to stay and the investment in the training is not wasted. They will earn the respect of the communities they serve because of the service they will provide.

 

You will receive no degrees or certificates here, in recognition of the humble philosophy imbibed by the college. Each of us is both the learner and the teacher, and need to unlearn as much as we learn in the search for true development. There is no hierarchy, and there are no experts. These thought provoking principles make us rethink everything we assume about the way of progress. Rather than being experts, these entrepreneurs are trained as resource people; people who can go back to their homes around the world, and become a Barefoot college in themselves.

It is the governments of each country that provide the funding to send participants to the college for a six-month training. These trainings have an immense benefit not only to the individual that receives them, but to the community to which they return, impacting their livelihood generation and quality of life.

The work of this college is a shining example of a climate solution. Not only are entrepreneurs being trained in clean technology manufacture and education, but it is a robust and effective road towards sustainable development, and human empowerment, a change that must take place if we are to address climate change. Sustainable development and addressing climate change are two sides of the same coin, and this was a shining example of transformative change making if ever I have seen one.

After we had made our way around part of the campus, learning from solar entrepreneurs, recycled craft entrepreneurs, weavers and puppeteers, we were blessed to be a part of one of the most beautiful concerts I have ever heard.

Through the music of Solar Punch, who improvised together with one of Rajasthan’s most renowned musical barefoot groups, a message was conveyed that crossed all boundaries. To have a band from New York, singing a Hindi Song, with Arabic melodies intertwined into the music by TH, and the Rajasthani musicians meeting each melody with their own interpretation was an experience like nothing else. It emphasised to me the importance of using every channel of communication, not just words when we approach all of the issues we have to face in life, as through this means, people are moved and touched at many different levels, not just that of the intellect, but that of the heart and soul. This was a change making concert.