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The Social Work and Research Centre ("SWRC"), aka the Barefoot College is a voluntary organization working in the fields of education, professional development, health, drinking water, women empowerment and solar electrification. Greg Mortenson, writes that Barefoot College has trained more than 3 million people for jobs in the modern world, "in buildings so rudimentary they have dirt floors and no chairs" so that poor students feel comfortable.In 2008 there were approximately 7,000 children attending the night school programs.

History

Bunker Roy founded Social Work and Research Centre in 1972 in Tilonia. The organization has utilized a system of training the trainers to bring skills training to villages. Within the school's programs, students and trainers of all castes and genders ate and worked together, in spite of traditional cultural hierarchical distinctions. Barefoot College began Children's Parliaments (also called Bal Sansad) where 2500 children age 6-14 in the Ajmer District learn about the electoral process by running for office and holding elections.

Methodology

The programs are influenced by the Gandhian philosophy of each village being self-reliant. The policy of the Barefoot College is to take students, primarily women from the poorest of villages and teach them to skills such as install build and repair solar lamps and waterpumps without requiring them to read or write. In extreme cases, there are students without verbal fluency in the languages of their teachers.

The college does not give out any degrees or certificates. V. Krishna has described the approach as "de-mystifying high technology" to rural villages to show that with the right training, "the uneducated and semi-literate can operate and manage" items like solar panels and water pumps.

Funding

Funding for Barefoot College comes from many different agencies within the Indian national and state governments, as well as from the UN and other western funding agencies.

Campus

The campus is entirely solar powered. The campus sits on 8 acres, has rainwater harvesting design and was built by the students.There is a gift shop featuring locally made souvenirs.

Cross-cultural collaboration

In 2012, the Barefoot College became the first NGO partner with UNESCO's Global Partnership for Girls’ and Women’s Education. A UNDP funded program of India's Ministry of External Affairs brings women from villages in rural Africa (which do not have electricity) to the school for training, after which they return with new skills to install solar electricity in their villages. The college entered into an agreement in 2012 to expand the programs for students from Fiji.

An exhibition of photographs taken by the students of the Barefoot College was presented at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Awards and achievements

• In 1998, it was awarded the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar (Indira Gandhi Environment Award), by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.
• In 2003, the Barefoot College won an Ashden Award for its work bringing solar power to rural villages.

Returned award

• The creators of the campus near Tilonia received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Originally the award was attributed to "an illiterate farmer", but later the award was corrected and redesignated to read "A young architect, Neehar Raina, prepared the architectural layout and an illiterate farmer from Tilonia, along with 12 other Barefoot Architects, constructed the buildings." when the presenters became aware of the involvement of professional architect Neehar Raina. Because of the inclusion of Raina, Roy did not accept the award on behalf of the school and returned it.

External links

• The Barefoot Approach, essay from Sumithra Prasanna for the International Museum of Women

References

1. Mortenson, Greg. (2010-04-29) Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy The 2010 TIME 100. TIME. Retrieved on 2012-06-02.
2. Fred de Sam Lazaro. "School in India Teaches Women to Improve Lives, Towns". PBS. Retrieved 18 November 2012. {{cite news}}: Text "October 6, 2008" ignored (help); Text "Online NewsHour" ignored (help); Text "PBS" ignored (help)
3. ^ Osler, Audrey (2000). Citizenship and Democracy in Schools: Diversity, Identity, Equality. Trentham Books. pp. 170–. ISBN 9781858562223. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
4. Elkington, John ,; Hartigan, Pamela (2008-02-01). The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World. Harvard Business Press. pp. 52–. ISBN 9781422104064. Retrieved 23 November 2012.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
5. http://www.barefootcollege.org/
6. Rothstein, Mitchell Grant (2010-06-01). Self-management and Leadership Development. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 499–. ISBN 9781848443235. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
7. Krishna, V (2005-09-14). Singh, M. (ed.). Meeting Basic Learning Needs in the Informal Sector: Integrating Education and Training for Decent Work, Empowerment and Citizenship. Springer. pp. 200–. ISBN 9781402034268. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
8. Cite error: The named reference Willis2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
9. ^ Jain, Sonu (1 July 2002). "Tilonia's Barefoot campus, now the bare facts". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 27 July 2010. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
10. Cite error: The named reference lonely2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
11. "India's Barefoot College and UNESCO join forces for Girls' and Women's Empowerment". United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
13. DAWN GIBSON (Nov 22, 2012). "Women get $550,000 -". Fiji Times. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
14. Cite error: The named reference BBC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
15. "List of Awardees". Ministry of Environment and Forests.
16. Barefoot College wins Ashden Award
17. "Swiss award for Bunker Roy". The Hindu. Sept 22, 2002. Retrieved 23 November 2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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