4 Jul 2011 - Swati & Ankit Homestay
It was so nice to catch up with our old friends Swati and Ankit and stayed with them in their new home in Gurgaon. It was hard to believe that they had just moved in only 2 days before because the whole place looked so well settled when we entered. We're convinced Swati would be highly successful if she were to start a moving company!
Gurgaon has a feel of the Silicon Valley in San Francisco, with most major IT companies having a presence here in the form of BPO (business process outsourcing). |

Swati drove us around in her new Nissan Micra.
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We visited the India Gate... |

Ankit loves street food so we jumped at the chance...
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And gobble whatever they sent our way... |

India Gate was beautiful at night. |

We sat around on the grass and enjoyed coffee.
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We also enjoyed peek show, old fashion style. |

I won't forget the experience of munching pan... |

Swati brought us to visit the Lotus Temple which is the Bahá'í House of Worship in Delhi. |

Hundreds of people queued up to enter the meditation hall for a 5-10 minutes of experience in silence. |

Swati, Robyn and Jin at lotus Temple. |

Shopping for fruits and veggies by the roadside stall. |

We visited Sukhram (owner of Tirthview Homestay) and his family at their home in Gurgaon. |

Robyn had fun again with Vanshika and Yashika. They first met on 6 Jun 2011 at Tirthview Homestay.
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8-11 Jul 2011: Jaipur to Barefoot College, Tilonia
Swapan and us left to Kishengarh by bus at noon. There, thanks to Vasu's arrangement, we were picked up by the Barefoot College's vehicle. It was the start of an eye-opening 3-day visit to this amazing place.

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Barefoot College
Founded by Mr Bunker Roy in 1972, the Barefoot College is a NGO that provides training to the rural poor with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable. It turns illiterate rural men and women into Barefoot Professionals in areas such as solar energy, water, education, health care, rural handicrafts, people’s action, communication, women’s empowerment and wasteland development. |
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Learning #1: Mass Communications with Puppets
Puppetry is a Rasjathani tradition that is creatively used as a medium of communication to the villagers.

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Barefoot Communicators use puppetry and music to stage unique street plays in rural villages to bring across socio-economic messages such as education, drinking water, transparency, communal harmony, women empowerment, untouchability, child rights, etc. "Chu-chu-ji" (above) is the super star that everyone knows. |
Learning #2: Solar Engineering
This was what brought us here in the first place. We heard from Sunil of Ecosphere how Bunker Roy is training illiterate women into Barefoot Solar Engineers who are able to solar electrify their rural villages. We also learnt that Barefoot College is run entirely by solar power.
We were literally blown away by what we saw here...
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30 African and Bhutan women from rural villages were undergoing 6-month training at the solar workshop. They had come from Mali, Gambia, Senegal, South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc and they all speak different languages.
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He is the Trainer for the solar workshop. He shared that the first 1.5 months was toughest in establishing communication. He uses no slides or notes. Training is totally experiential and learning is achieved through doing. Although he suffered deformity to his right leg due to polio, he lives a dignified life as a Barefoot Solar Trainer. |

Bhutanese women assembling solar lights. Instead of written technical terms, they rely on colours for correct wiring the circuit setup. |

Claire Ngwasha from Zimbabwe told us that her village has no electricity and how she looked forward to solar electrifying her village. |
This mechanism allows the parabolic solar cooker to be set up once in the morning and it'll rotate the mirror to track the sun throughout the day. It works like a clock mechanism.
20 litres of water can be boiled within an hour making possible even large-scale catering. It can cook rice, vegetables and lentils. |

At the Solar Cooker Fabrication Section, women were busy cutting and welding metallic sections to create parabolic solar cookers. This is precision engineering made simple that empowers illiterate women to do the job that is normally done by men. |

Barefoot College set up the Women Barefoot Solar Cooker Engineers Society in 2003. It is the first association of illiterate and semi-literate women who independently fabricate, install and maintain 2.5 square metre parabolic solar cookers. |

Besides solar cookers, the women also fabricate solar water heaters of various sizes.
Solar Powered Desalination Plant is another area that Barefoot pioneered. |

We visited Manthan in Kotri. Manthan started as a Barefoot field centre but eventually the local registered it as an NGO and went independent itself. It is still supported by Barefoot College. This is a new solar Reverse Osmosis plant for water desalination. Kotri is a small village with 300 families but the ground water is saline so drinking water has been a problem for a long time for the villagers. |

In 2006, Barefoot set up India’s first solar powered Reverse Osmosis plant for desalination at Kotri. At Manthan, we met individuals who started with Barefoot Night School and went on to become Teachers and Counsellors. Santilal is a 17 year old student who attends Barefoot Night School in the evening and is employed to operate the RO plant by day. Future RO engineer in the making... |
Learning #3: Barefoot Night School
We had the opportunity to visit a Barefoot Night School. The concept is to start class in the night after the children and youth are done with the day's work of tending to the farm, animal husbandry or looking after younger siblings.
These classes are run by Barefoot Teachers who are trained at the Barefoot College. |
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Learning #4: Rural Healthcare
The Barefoot medical centre provides healthcare and dentistry services for all the nearby villages in Tilonia. The Barefoot health teams also conduct regular health talks in villages to educate on hygiene and health awareness. |

We met many wonderful people at the Barefoot College. Dr. S.K. Battacharya is one of them. He has renounced the modern world and come here to serve as its residential doctor for close to 20 years. |

Bhemwar is the Barefoot Dentist stationed at the campus but she is illiterate! Guess who trained her? An Italian dentist! Communication had to have been like a chicken and a duck, but nothing is impossible! |
Learning #5: Sanitary Napkin
We visited a production unit that employs women in the manufacturing of low cost sanitary napkin for rural women. Each box of 12 pieces of sanitary napkin cost only Rs.12. |
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Learning #6: Tilonia Rural Craft Shop
Barefoot promotes rural crafts made by the villagers to help them in establishing income opportunities. At the craft shop in the campus ground, we were impressed with the wonderful and lovely designs.
There is a workshop for handlooms and weaving, another wood workshop where women create handmade educational toys for schools.
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We are confident that some of these rural enterprise solutions are applicable to the Tribal School Project to help our tribal youth transform the tribal community in the long run. |

Barefoot College harvests rain water from all available rooftops. It has been promoting this practice across water scarce Rajasthan.
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It was wonderful that Swapan was able to join us for this visit to the Barefoot College as he'll bring back to Tribal School valuable experiences and ideas.
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Meals are veg, simple but nutritious. |

Everyone sits on the floor for a hearty meal. |

Jin, Swapan, Dilip Mishra (who came from Gurgaon to find out more about social work by Barefoot College in preparation for his eventual liberation from corporate life on 12 Apr 2012) and Dr. S.K. Battacharya.
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Charles Janssen from Belgium made a kind donation of Rs.10,000 to Tribal School Project after we shared with him the "WHY TSP" slides the night before. Next to him is Vasu from Barefoot College. |