Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Ryan Geertsma.
Voice 2
And I'm Robin Basselin. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
Aminata and Haja are two Tuareg women from the small village of Tinjambane in Mali, West Africa. Both women are widows - women whose husbands have died. And both of them have children.
Voice 2
Aminata and Haja's village is on the Niger river, about twenty kilometers from Timbuktu It is a small community with only ninety-two [92] homes. Most of the homes are traditional buildings made of mud. The village has one school and one mosque. Until a year ago, it had no electricity.
Voice 1
Today, Tinjambane does have electricity. And Aminata and Haja are responsible. You see, these two widows were trained in a very special school. They travelled thousands of miles to India. There, they learned about using the sun's energy to make electricity. They also learned how to build and take care of this solar equipment.
Voice 2
Today's Spotlight is on the special Indian school that the women attended. It is called Barefoot College. This college is special because it serves poor people who live far away from big towns and cities. These people are the rural poor. At this college they can share their knowledge and receive free high level education. This education is useful for their lives in small, country villages.
Voice 1
Barefoot College used to be called The Social Work and Research Center. It was started in 1971 in the small village of Tilonia, in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Barefoot's founder was a man named Bunker Roy. He explains that the school began with a simple idea.
Voice 3
"The idea was to listen and learn. We wanted to get the farmer and the expert together so they could connect and learn - and unlearn - from each other."
Voice 2
Bunker Roy had already lived in Tilonia for four years when he started Barefoot. He moved there after a terrible famine had caused many people in the Tilonia area to die from a lack of food. Bunker explains what he was like when he arrived,
Voice 3
"I went to live and work in the rural village of Tilonia. Before that, I had received the most costly, high-class private education that any Indian could possibly receive."
Voice 1
Bunker had all the documents to prove that he was well educated. He could have used these paper degrees to get one of the best jobs in India. However, when he arrived in Tilonia, he found that the local people did not think highly of his education. In the rural village, his paper degrees had no value. He also found that many of the "experts" that came to the area to help the rural poor had no practical experience. They did not understand the needs of the rural poor.
Voice 2
This completely changed the way Bunker thought about helping the poor. He recognized that the rural poor had much to teach the "experts." And he realized that the rural poor knew best what their own communities needed.
Voice 1
Bunker decided that Barefoot College would best serve the rural poor if it was run "by the poor, for the poor." This idea is based on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. From Gandhi and the local people of Tilonia, Bunker learned the importance of giving poor people the power to recognize their self-worth. He explains,
Voice 3
"What I learned is that empowerment is about teaching people to solve problems, to make choices, and to have the courage to act on them."
Voice 2
Barefoot College became a place where "experts" came to "unlearn" some of their book knowledge. Book knowledge does not always work in the rural setting. The experts also came to learn from the local people. The local people came to share their traditional knowledge and learn new skills - skills that were important and practical for rural life. Barefoot trains people with the skills to become teachers, water and solar engineers, healthcare workers and much more. However, Barefoot does not award any paper degrees.
Voice 1
In fact, this is where Barefoot College gets its name. The name Barefoot is a symbol. People come to Barefoot College without paper degrees - or without shoes on their feet. After training at Barefoot College, students leave the same way they came - without a paper degree.
Voice 2
This may seem strange. But the Barefoot idea is important in a rural setting. In many rural areas, getting a paper degree causes people to move to the cities. Newly educated people think that their degrees will bring them a job and much wealth in the city. But most rural poor that move to cities end up living in even worse conditions - in crowded city slums. Barefoot College wants to help stop this global problem of people moving to city slums. It wants to help the rural poor to improve their own lives within their own communities.
Voice 1
Barefoot only takes uneducated, rural students that want to remain in their village. So the paper degrees are not necessary. What is necessary is learning good, practical skills, and this is what Barefoot teaches.
Voice 2
Barefoot recognizes that traditional education can teach many important things like reading, writing, and mathematics. But it also recognizes that much education happens outside of a classroom. So learning at Barefoot College happens through example. Teachers teach by doing things. Students learn by watching and then doing things themselves. This kind of learning does not require the student to be able to read, write or even know the teacher's language.
Voice 1
Many people think this kind of teaching cannot work. However, the story of Aminata and Haja proves that it can. When Aminata and Haja left Mali for India, they did not know the local Indian language. They had never gone to school before. And Haja did not even know how to read or write her own language. And the Barefoot teachers still trained these women to be solar engineers. The teachers used their actions and simple sign language to teach. After six months, Aminata and Haja returned to Mali. When the solar materials arrived from India, the two women built a solar electrical system for their whole village in just ten days. Today, Aminata and Haja are responsible for fixing and keeping care of the equipment. People in their community pay them each month for this valuable service.
Voice 2
Barefoot College also wants other people to start more colleges - just like itself. Barefoot was created in a way that could be copied all over the world. Today, there are twenty colleges in India that copy the Barefoot idea. Each school is independent, but they all teach equality, living simply and making decisions as a community. And all the colleges begin with Bunker Roy's one simple idea:
Voice 3
"The idea is to use local wisdom before we involve "experts" from outside the community."
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