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Positive News was handed the guardianship of Global Village News and Resources in summer of 2004. Although we would like to continue to make the archives available to subscribers and readers we would like to point out that stories published prior to issue 89 were not under our editorial guidance and would like to make a distinction that these are not necessarily a reflection of the current opinions of our editorial team. Barefoot College Provides Model of Self-Development At Village Level India - Out of the 600,000 villages in India, Tilonia con be classified as a very ordinary one with a population of around 2,000. It has a railway station, a few provision shops, some 25 hand pumps for drinking water and two schools run on conventional lines. But what is extraordinary in this ordinary village is the existence of a voluntary agency called the Social Work and Research Centre (SWRC) that has been working there since 1972. Over the past two decades, hundreds of teachers, doctors, health care workers, solar engineers, hand pump mechanics, designers, accountants and communicators have been trained. And spreading from Tilonia, over 100,000 people in 110 villages now have access to safe drinking water, education, health and employment. Today Tilonia is better known for its Barefoot College, which got its name because the initiative entirely depends on local people with little formal education. “We believe that paper-qualified, urban trained experts and professionals can easily be replaced by people from the village,” says Roy. “People in Tilonia do not need knowledge - they need confidence and assurance that the skills they already have are enough to improve their quality of life.” Tilonia is located in one of India’s largest, driest and poorest states, Rajasthan. Most people survive on subsistence farming or manual labour. The state population is approximately 44 million, and over 45% of all men and 80% of all women are illiterate. More than half of the children aged between 6 and 14 do not attend school. Nevertheless, a long history of oral tradition has contributed to a rich and diversified culture that has its own informal learning process. The campus of the college, for example, was designed by a villager who still cannot read and write. The same villager planned and implemented a piped drinking water supply in six different villages, involving the whole population of each village in laying the pipes and paying for the water. The College is fully solar energised: the power for the residences, the water testing laboratory, the library, the offices and the pumping and water distribution systems come from the sun. The installation, fabrication and maintenance of the entire system is in the hands of rural youth who have not gone beyond primary school. “It is an effective way of preventing migration to the cities,” says Roy. Solar energy also makes Tilonia the first village in India with access to e-mail. Between 1990-1995, 20 computers were installed and more than 30 rural women have been trained to use them. They have collectively catalogued 25,000 library books and colour slides, and gained tremendous confidence and self-esteem in the process. Education is an important cornerstone of the Barefoot College: 40 day-care centres and 4 day-schools provide children with education adjusted to their rural environment. These centres are also used to educate parents about nutrition, health care, education and women’s rights. To meet the needs of children who are busy grazing goats and sheep during the day, 150 night schools have opened, enrolling more than 3,000 children. “Night schools are the most exciting innovation in Tilonia,” says Roy. Night school teachers are local residents who have been trained at the Barefoot College in subjects such as alternative medicine, use of computers, and environmental issues. Night students also participate in elections to the Children’s Parliament, which parallel the political structure of the Indian government. One of the initial prime ministers was a fourteen-year old girl, Kaushalya Devi, who looked after goats in the morning. She and her fifteen-member cabinet of ministers were responsible for the functioning of the night schools. If a teacher is not coming regularly to school, the minister of education is responsible for reporting it to the Barefoot College. And if the solar lights are not working in a school, the minister of energy reports in. “These night-school children are our future teachers, midwives, computer programmers, water chemists and political leaders,” stresses Roy. The idea of night schools has now been picked up by the Government of India. The Department of Education has approved the establishment of 275 more night schools in eight declared “backward states”. For More Information: http://www.barefootcollege.org/ or http://wrweb.com/escap-ngo-profiles/ngo-profile-the-barefoot-college.htm (Source: Positive News: www.positivenews.org.uk) |
