Organization name :	The Barefoot College
Country :	India

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Barefoot College
www.barefootcollege.org
www.globalrainwaterharvesting.org

Testimonial
Winning the Alcan Prize- the world’s largest award on Sustainability- has endorsed the value, relevance, importance and urgency of the ‘ barefoot approach’ of empowering poor illiterate (but educated) communities to control, manage and own their technical and financial resources thus demonstrating how poor communities all over the world can be self reliant.



Profile

Mission
The long-term mission of the Barefoot College has been to work with the marginalized, exploited and impoverished rural poor living on less than $1/day and facilitate their development with dignity and self respect to improve their quality of life.

The style of the Barefoot college reflects the importance and relevance of Mahatma Gandhi’s message today:

• knowledge, skills and wisdom found in the villages can be used for their own development
• technology can be demystified and decentralized into the hands of the rural poor
• there is a difference between literacy and education
• marginalized women have been given equal opportunities to learn; and
• all waste should be recycled.

Background
The Barefoot College was started in 1972. Between 1972 and 1979 an attempt was made to provide quality services to the rural poor but this failed because urban professionals were not prepared to work for long periods with job insecurity, low salaries and primitive living conditions. This led to a fundamental shift in mindset towards developing the capacity and competence of the rural poor to provide the same technical services. This was when the ‘barefoot approach’ was born. Since then ‘barefoot’ professionals have been recruited from the villages as teachers, solar and water engineers, health workers, drillers and communicators. This has contributed to the building up of their confidence and self esteem.

From 1980 to 1990 the Barefoot College campus, which now covers 80,000 square feet, was fully solar electrified by barefoot solar engineers, and construction of the rainwater harvesting structures began in schools. By 2000 the college was training
and placing barefoot women solar and water engineers across India and abroad.

Partnerships
The Barefoot College has worked with a wide range of organizations, most notably the Global Rain Water Harvesting Collective, which promotes roof top rainwater harvesting in rural schools worldwide. In September 2005 the Collective signed an MoU with UINCEF to collaborate in Mozambique, Sudan and Ethiopia, and a further partnership was agreed with the Water Supply Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) to promote rainwater harvesting in African countries including Senegal, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso.

Within India, the Barefoot College has received funds totaling $ 1.3 million from the Ministry of Water Resources Government of India to provide drinking water to over 600 schools across India. The project was completed in March 2006 and has benefited 20,000 students.

Impact Achieved
The Barefoot College has shown the importance of giving the rural poor choices of different approaches and methods that lead to less dependency on outside resources and a focus on sustainability.

The Barefoot approach has reached an enormous number of poor people in India:

• Thousands of unemployed and unemployable rural youth, both men and women, have been trained as barefoot professionals
• Over 750,000 men, women and children have access to safe drinking water through 1,800 hand pump schemes
• Over 100,000 people have access to solar lighting
• Over 50 million liters of rainwater has been collected in nearly 500 rural schools and 125 community centers
• 75,000 children have passed through ‘barefoot’ night schools
• each year 100,000 villagers attend traditional glove puppet shows which convey vital social messages.

The ‘barefoot’ approach has been replicated in 13 States across India, and is now spreading internationally as far away as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Bolivia, Senegal and Mali.

Contact
For further information please email: