Shehnaz Bano - Barefoot Solar Cooker Engineer
Shehenaz Bano comes from a village called Arain, 30 kms from the Barefoot College. Her husband is a mechanic in a workshop in the nearby town of Kishengarh. They have 3 children.
One day through sheer chance, she visited the night school running close to her village. She saw the solar lights in the school. She applied for a solar lantern. Much to her surprise, she was invited by the College to come and learn how to construct solar lanterns. Despite being semi-literate having only studied until 4th Class and knowing little about technical matters, she became a trained at Barefoot College in 2003.
She is now a fully trained Solar Cooker Engineer. She comes from a conservative Muslim family and is so precise about her calculations that her thinking and mental discipline is half-German!! She says unless her calculations are right, the clock will not work and the parabolic cooker will not turn with the sun.
She is a part of a team of 4 women who got together to establish the first registered Barefoot Women’s Solar Cooker’s Association in Rajasthan. They have constructed 25 cookers so far and 5 more are under way. She has become a trainer and has trained 5 more women how to construct a solar cooker.
She is now a fully competent engineer and very happy because now she can earn enough to support her family and share a very rare skill, very few rural women have in India.
