Key Facts
- Rural areas in India face multiple problems of lack of drinking water, electricity, power, education facilities, job opportunities and poor access to health services.
- Barefoot engineers have installed solar power to 12,000 households.
- More than 1,737 hand water pumps serving 325,000 people have been installed.
The Barefoot College’s Response
Founded in 1972, the Barefoot College is an award-winning, not-for-profit organisation based in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India. It is the only college in India to be built by the poor for the poor and serves a population of over 125,000 people. The College’s goal is to create skilled workers from the community to solve local problems using traditional knowledge and sustainable technology. As the area experiences frequent droughts, the College began with the basics of finding safe drinking water and then in 1986, it looked at the problem of getting solar power to villages.
The College focuses on empowering women who have traditionally been marginalised and restricted to household chores. Through a learning-by-doing process of education, the College encourages practical skills rather than paper qualifications. Women learn how to become ‘barefoot’ solar engineers and how to construct rooftop rainwater tanks in rural community centres. The knowledge and income the women gain improves their standing at home and in the community and provides their local schools with solar power and drinking water.
Our Support
The British Asian Trust’s funding will provide:
- training for five rural women to be trained as solar cooker engineers,
- ten parabolic solar cookers in pre-school education centres,
- eight rainwater tanks,
- the collection of four hundred thousand litres of rainwater from eight community centre rooftops.
Charity News & Events
The SOLAR SISTERS-a project of the Barefoot College is one of the 12 Finalists of the BBC World Challenge. They need all the votes they can to win! Please support them on : http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/
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The Princes Charities
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.