This post was originally published by Empower Generation, which merged with Pollinate Energy to form Pollinate Group in 2018.
Ana Maria Martinez and Sita Adhikari visited Barefoot College in Rajasthan this summer. Barefoot College is an inspiration for EG and we’re happy to report that Ana and Sita learned a lot of new things, and got to meet founder, Bunker Roy, himself! Here’s what Ana has to say about their experience.
BAREFOOT COLLEGE – TRAINING SOLAR COOKER ENGINEERS
“I became a solar engineer because someone believed in me. Bunker Roy did not mind that I am a rural woman who does not have a degree and has never gone to school. He thought I could do it and I did it. ” – Shehnaz.
A few years ago, Barefoot College founder Bunker Roy asked Shehnaz if she wanted to become a solar cooker engineer. At the time, Shehnaz did not even know what an “engineer” was, but since “Mr. Roy” believed she was capable enough for this opportunity she decided to accept.
“How can you say no to Bunker Ji?” Shehnaz told me when I visited her at Barefoot College in Tilonia, India last August. In reality, Shehnaz took on the challenge without really knowing what she was getting herself into.
In 2003, a German solar engineer spent three weeks in Tilonia and showed Shehnaz giant parabolic mirrors that intrigued her at first: “I could not believe that these things could be used for cooking. And I was far from imagining that I would one day be capable of making a stove myself,” she remembered. Shehnaz went through a process of personal insecurity, frustrations and challenges to become the first women to create the first solar stove produced at Barefoot College.
Technical language was not even the main challenge they had to overcome; plain language was: “I do not speak English or German and he did not speak Hindi, yet he was able to teach me and I to learn from him,” Shehnaz reminisced. It was the first opportunity she was given in her life and she did not want to let it slip. After a year of failed trials and hard work, she finally produced her first functional solar cooker. “At first, I wanted to leave it all, but within months, I knew it was the only thing I wanted to do.”
Today, Shehnaz teaches other women how to make solar cookers and she leads a team of solar cooker mechanics that works with as much precision as any German engineers, and probably with more love and dedication. Her self-esteem and confidence have impregnated other women in the village: “As a poor woman, I never imagined I could do something like this. Now, I believe that I am capable of doing anything I want. It doesn’t matter anymore that I have no education, that I come from a low cast and that I am a woman” she concluded with pride.
Barefoot College is a non-government organization that provides basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable. These ‘Barefoot solutions’ can be broadly categorized into solar energy, water, education, health care, rural handicrafts, people’s action, communication, women’s empowerment and wasteland development. For further information see:
http://www.barefootcollege.org/