thoughtsandtalks

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Sarju Bhanwar Gopal Panwar. Handicrafts Designer.
streaming video — 03:40

My name is Sarju, I’m 50 years old and I work at Barefoot College since 1981. I lead the handicraft department. I never got a proper training as a designer. I learned everything myself, and now I teach other women. I get my inspiration for the designs out of our daily life. I’ve never seen any books, I work with my imagination.
I’m born and brought up in Tilonia. When I got married I moved to a village 25 km from here. My native language is Marwari, but I speak also our national language Hindi and some English words as well. I belong to the Darji-caste, as well as my husband. I studied till the 5th grade, afterwards I went working.
I’m married for many years now. I was 13 when my parents arranged my marriage. Now (some) girls can choose themselves whom to marry. My parents didn’t have to give a dowry. My in-laws accepted me as their daughter and both families spent an equal amount on the wedding. (more…)

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Shamma Jogi. Solar Cooker Engineer.
streaming video — 03:40

The main problem for our poverty is water. We all work as farmers and without rain there’s no harvest and no money. Nobody of my family or in-laws is educated. I took the decision to go a few years to nightschool, as I felt the need to learn and during daytime I had to work on the fields.
My husband is a truckdriver. He supports me completely in my decision to work. We need to feed our children. It’s important to give them a decent future with a good education. That’s why I decided to come to Barefoot, because of the jobs.
My husband is happy that I feel good in this community. The money I earn helps us for paying our expenses.
Since I got married I worked in the house. The people from Barefoot came to the villages to talk about their program. They spoke about solar lighting and handicrafts and education. My in-laws asked if they could teach me solar lighting so that I could bring electricity to the village as we don’t have light there. My in-laws were very supportive, they understood Barefoot was an interesting place for learning.
(more…)

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Sita Bai :: Solar Cooker Engineer
streaming video — 03:40

In the villages there still is a lot of discrimination. On the level of castes, on the level of male dominance.
There are many clashes with the vllagers. As I’m from a lower cast, they don’t allow me to eat with them. They even don’t let me sit next to them. Or come close to dried cow dung.
Than they say that I spoil their fuel.
The villagers are also jealous. They see that I educated myself and that I became an independent lady.
I wonder where all this fuzz about high and low castes comes from. After all we are all the same human beings.
(more…)

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Leela Devi :: Solar Lighting Engineer.
streaming video — 01:40

I am a teacher and a student and a student and a teacher.
My husband used to work at the College. I came along with him.
Our parents arranged our marriage long before my husband started his further studies. At that time there was no item of getting a more educated wife. His family liked me and my family liked him for me. The education-level difference between us was no point, as the arrangement was not based on education. Now I can discuss problems with my husband. He’s very supportive. If I don’t understand something he explains me.
I started to work in the handicraft section before I asked myself to be transferred to the solar department. I wanted to learn something new, completely different from what I used to do. Stitching every woman can do. But solar was completely new when I came here. In the beginning I never thought I would never be able to understand it, but now I feel very comfortable and I like doing it. (more…)

For a video report on the solar engineers of Hyderabad, check the category ‘media’.

Four dark-skinned women in multi-hued saris hunch over a solar power-generating circuit at the National Institute for Rural Development (NIRD) in Hyderabad, fleshing out details about solar lamps and panels for Indian villages. Chennamma, Yelamma, Kalavati and Zayda, all illiterate women in their 30s who previously worked as stone crushers in South India’s quarries, have left the furnace-like heat of their previous jobs to use the sun to a better purpose. This is the Women Barefoot Solar Engineers Association of Hyderabad. Exploitive employers, 10 hours of backbreaking labor and a long wait in queues to collect a wage of a dollar a day pretty much summed up these women’s bleak existence in the quarries. But today, after the institute’s Rural Technology Park helped train them as solar engineers, the women manufacture and maintain solar lamps and travel across India’s vast rural landscape to install solar power generators.
(more…)

The training is non-structured and informal, incorporating on-the-job learning while earning.

- learning from doing and mutual interaction, not through formal classroom teaching
- emphasis on practical experience; little or no importance given to paper qualifications
- the belief is that the educational system today cannot judge the worth and value of persons. Passing exams, getting degrees is no guarantee that they are either valuable or necessary for the development of rural communities. The crucial question is: can they work with their hands?
- to prevent environmental degradation and to make communities sustainable, the answer is for them to finally depend on each other and use existing village skills for their own development.
- Tilonia’s role is to facilitate a process that allows for self reliance, self respect and dignity. It is not to increase dependency on urban professionals and skills. (more…)

For videos on the nightschools and eductation, check the category ‘media’.

Nightschools are set up to give working children a chance on education. Most of the pupils are girls whom in daytime have to herd the cattle or fetch water for the households. After their daytime jobs, they attend the nightschool from 7pm till 9.30pm. The girls, between 6 and 13 years of age, reacted all in a very shy way on our visit. It took them a while to regain their natural behaviour and to forget our presence.

Est-ce qu’il se passe autre chose, quand on est dans le documentaire et qu’une femme, un homme, un enfant vous confient un bout de leur vie?
Ils se confient. Ils se confient à vous. Je ne sais pas pourquoi ils vous confient tout ça. C’est leur secret.
Peut-être parce que vous êtes étrangère. Peut-être parce que vous allez disparaître de leur vie.
Ou simplement parce que vous êtes là ce jour là à la bonne distance.
[ Chantal Akerman, autoportrait en cinéaste ]

For a video-presentation of the Barefoot College, check the category ‘media’.

Tilonia is a very small village in the middel of the Rajasthan desert, about 650 km south-west of Delhi. Barefoot College was founded here in the early ‘70-ties.
What makes it unique and different to all other centres of ‘learning and unlearning’, is its approach: it has devalued and rejected the urban professionals produced by the formal education system.
Over the years it became clear what exactly is unlearnt: the extent to which was underestimated the infinite capacity and competence of the people to identify and solve their own problems, by means of their own skills and mutual trust without relying on strangers’ skills and knowledge from outside.

Nearly three decades ago, the Barefoot People started putting Ghandian ideas into practice, not knowing weather their own ‘Experiments with Truth’ would work because they sounded so simple and yet so difficult.
The basic Gandhian concepts and principles of simplicity and austerity have stood the test of time. People live and eat together. People sit on the floor at Barefoot, and work. People in this College clean their own dishes, sweep their own floors and do voluntary work to keep the Centre clean. Everybody is equal. The ideas, values, humanity and compassion of the people are in focus. The lifestyle of Barefoot College harbours the spirit of a Gandhian ashram.

Interaction with the rural community has taught to respect the natural elements like water and sun. Since 1986 the Barefoot College runs solely on solar energy. Computers, telephone-lines, lighting for residencies and offices, water distribution, laboratory and maternity centre are run on power that comes from the sun. The nightschools for kids are provided with lighting from solar lanterns. Rainwater is collected in underground tanks. No water is wasted. (more…)