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Rami Devi. Activist and coordinator women empowerment groups.
streaming video — 06:40
My name is Rami Devi. My age is around 35 years. I don’t profess a specific religion. Praying all day wouldn’t bring any food to my stomach. I don’t believe in blind fate anymore. One cannot grasp god and force him to put food in your mouth. So for me there is first work and than god.
I know that the last years I realised a lot of changes for myself. Earlier I would not have been able to sit here on this bed, facing the camera. I would have been sitting on the floor with my dupatta over my face. But today I can sit like this, facing you and speak out my mind freely.
Continue reading →
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Shamma Jogi. Solar Cooker Engineer.
streaming video — 03:40
The main problem for our poverty is water. We all work as farmers and without rain there’s no harvest and no money. Nobody of my family or in-laws is educated. I took the decision to go a few years to nightschool, as I felt the need to learn and during daytime I had to work on the fields.
My husband is a truckdriver. He supports me completely in my decision to work. We need to feed our children. It’s important to give them a decent future with a good education. That’s why I decided to come to Barefoot, because of the jobs.
My husband is happy that I feel good in this community. The money I earn helps us for paying our expenses.
Since I got married I worked in the house. The people from Barefoot came to the villages to talk about their program. They spoke about solar lighting and handicrafts and education. My in-laws asked if they could teach me solar lighting so that I could bring electricity to the village as we don’t have light there. My in-laws were very supportive, they understood Barefoot was an interesting place for learning.
Continue reading →
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Sita Bai :: Solar Cooker Engineer
streaming video — 03:40
In the villages there still is a lot of discrimination. On the level of castes, on the level of male dominance.
There are many clashes with the vllagers. As I’m from a lower cast, they don’t allow me to eat with them. They even don’t let me sit next to them. Or come close to dried cow dung.
Than they say that I spoil their fuel.
The villagers are also jealous. They see that I educated myself and that I became an independent lady.
I wonder where all this fuzz about high and low castes comes from. After all we are all the same human beings.
Continue reading →
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Leela Devi :: Solar Lighting Engineer.
streaming video — 01:40
I am a teacher and a student and a student and a teacher.
My husband used to work at the College. I came along with him.
Our parents arranged our marriage long before my husband started his further studies. At that time there was no item of getting a more educated wife. His family liked me and my family liked him for me. The education-level difference between us was no point, as the arrangement was not based on education. Now I can discuss problems with my husband. He’s very supportive. If I don’t understand something he explains me.
I started to work in the handicraft section before I asked myself to be transferred to the solar department. I wanted to learn something new, completely different from what I used to do. Stitching every woman can do. But solar was completely new when I came here. In the beginning I never thought I would never be able to understand it, but now I feel very comfortable and I like doing it. Continue reading →
Four dark-skinned women in multi-hued saris hunch over a solar power-generating circuit at the National Institute for Rural Development (NIRD) in Hyderabad, fleshing out details about solar lamps and panels for Indian villages. Chennamma, Yelamma, Kalavati and Zayda, all illiterate women in their 30s who previously worked as stone crushers in South India’s quarries, have left the furnace-like heat of their previous jobs to use the sun Continue reading →
Interview with Bunker Roy, co-founder of the Barefoot College (by Rocketboom).
Interview with Vandana Shiva, eco-feminist and founder of the Navdanya organisation.
Barefoot Solar Engineers in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (by Neeta Lal).
Scroll down for complete selection.
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We wanted to set up a rural technological centre. A campus built only on green technologies.
We started to develop the solar section in 1988, funded with the royalties from the book The City of Joy. We were told about the advantages of photovoltaic solar panels to bring electricity to remote villages. We wanted to set up an open concept that everybody understood, so we started with trainings. The purpose was to inform all the rural people and tell them how we could upgrade our standards of living together.
I started to learn about solar systems: understanding photovoltaic panels, the batteries, production and maintenance. That time I was teaching science and maths in the night schools, and the project gave me the opportunity to learn about new techniques. I got more and more interested in the matter.
Today I have trained more than 400 Barefoot women solar engineers. Continue reading →
For video-interview with Vandana Shiva, check the category 'media'.
“The primary threat to nature and people today comes from centralising and monopolising power and control. Not until diversity is made the logic of production will there be a chance for sustainability, justice and peace. Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative.” Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva has devoted her life to fighting for the rights of ordinary people in India. Her fierce intellect and her disarmingly friendly, accessible manner have made her a valuable advocate for people all over the developing world.
Navdanya :: the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology
Diverse Women for Diversity
Sita Bai is one of the Barefoot SolarCooker Engineers. Together with 3 other women she runs the solar-cooker section of the College.
Some years ago she decided to start a 6 months training as solar panel engineer, and she continued her education with a focus on solar cookers.
Today the women are responsible for the construction of the large parabolic dishes, covered with regular pieces of mirror.
They tailor them precisely according to the blueprints of a German Engineer, Wolfgang Scheffler, with whom they still collaborate and improve the reflectors and machinery when needed.
They organise their smithy, weld and solder the mechanical parts for the cookers out of recycled bicycle parts. Their apparatus are sold to organisations in India who use them in community kitchens.
Scheffler’s Community Solar Cooker
Scheffler’s Solar Cooker – pdf
For videos on the solar workshops, check the category ‘media’.
At Barefoot College, ordinary men and women -whatever their qualifications- can learn about solar energy. Roles have to be flexible: the teacher can be the learner and the learner can be the teacher.
The whole environment is one of creative learning, demystifying technology and unlearning through processes that are natural, non violent and respectful.
At present time, 32 Buthanese girls and 6 Mauretanian women follow a 6 months training to become a solar engineer in their home villages.
They are selected by their communities to be trained in the installation, repair and maintenance of solar photovoltaic units. They learn the necessary skills to repair inverters and charge the controllers for the solar units they will look after.
Every family of the remote village communities pays a small sum for the equipment and the services of the solar engineers. As such, every member of the community takes his responsability in this ecological project of sustainable energy.
solar energy installation manual download pdf
solar energy maintenance manual download pdf
