Robert Muller 's Good Morning World

Interview with S. Srinivasan, Facilitator, Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajasthan, India. Interviewed in Tilonia inJanuary 2007

The Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, is located on 2 interconnecting campuses. It has 10 outreach field offices which are instrumental in the coordination of the activities it carries out in over 150 outlying villages. The Barefoot campus is entirely powered by solar energy. Barefoot shares its know-how of solar technology not only with local villagers, but also with people from other countries like Afghanistan, Bolivia and Gambia, who visit the campus for a 6 month period during which they learn how to assemble and repair the necessary solar equipment in order to bring electricity to their home villages.

In addition to this important work with solar technology, Barefoot runs night schools for children who are unable to benefit from mainstream education because of their family duty to work in the fields or to look after livestock. Fifty-seven children from these night schools are then elected as representatives to a Children’s Parliament, which meets once a month. One child from these 57 is elected as Prime Minister of the Parliament for a two and a half year period.

Barefoot is also active in rain water harvesting, weaving and clothe making as well as in the manufacture of wooden toys for children. It runs clinics providing medical services based mainly on homeopathic remedies and it addresses important social issues in the villages through the performance of puppet shows.

Vicky Rossi: When was the Barefoot College first established and what was the main motivation of its founders?

S. Srinivasan (commonly known as “Vasu”): The Barefoot College was founded in 1972 by Mr Bunker Roy and two others. It was a voluntary organisation specifically formed with the belief that in order to work with the poorest of the poor in the villages one has to base oneself in the village. Only in this way can one uncover the problems faced by the communities there, as perceived by the villagers themselves. In the initial 1-2 years, the set of objectives held by the organisation became more concretised and more specific. This led to initiatives being started with regards drinking water. Access to drinking water was a problem for the poorest of the poor in the villages and linked to that was health – access to health services was almost nil.

When the founders of Barefoot progressed further in their series of village meetings, they realised that although there were schools, children were not going to them. They discovered too that there was hardly any employment in the villages that could sustain the people there, so villagers were migrating to nearby towns and cities in search of labour. The founders of Barefoot understood the needs of the community because these needs were spelt out by the communities themselves. Barefoot College became a fora for urban educated professionals, graduates and post-graduates to work with the rural youth in the villages. That’s how it all started.

Vicky Rossi: You have already mentioned a few of the very important initiatives carried out by the Barefoot College, for example, with regard to drinking water, night schools and employment opportunities. Can you indicate some of the many other activities you are involved with?

Vasu: Well, as I just mentioned, in the beginning, we started tackling the difficulties faced by the poorest of the poor in terms of access to drinking water, education, health and livelihood; these were integrated with one another and the overall objective was to improve the quality of life in the villages. We found that with regards access to drinking water people had to go – or rather women had to go – kilometres away to fetch water. In the same way, they also had to go far to fetch fuel wood for energy.

[For the rest of the interview: http://www.transnational.org/Columns_Rossi/barefoot.html