In India, 220,000 villages lack electricity. Development organizations like the Barefoot College have focused on empowering women to help these rural villages. Solar projects which brings solar-powered lights is run by the Barefoot College in Tilonia, founded by Bunker Roy in 1972 to help make Indian villagers become self-sufficient, with an emphasis on using women’s skills. The college (www.barefootcollege.org) has now reached out to more than 125,000 people in 160 villages over an area of 500 square miles, addressing such problems as sanitation and safe drinking water by building toilets and underground reservoirs, where rainwater is harvested and stored. It has also focused attention on rural unemployment, income generation and waste recycling.
A key priority is the education of girls, normally taboo in rural Rajasthan. Furthermore, the college trains girls and boys from other Indian states to work together, discover their own skills or acquire new ones, and set themselves up with forms of income generation. Over the years, these women solar engineers have not only gained acceptance in the community but earned respect as trainers of women from other Indian states and from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Ghana, Syria and Uganda.
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