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The women of India's solar-power engineer bring light to villages
Barefoot Solar Engineer at the Barefoot College in Tilonia village,
Ajmer, Rajasthan, India Kamla Devi was Rajasthan's first woman to graduate from Barefoot college
as a solar engineer
. Photograph: Suzanne Lee/Panos
Securing the end of her bright yellow and orange sari firmly around her
head, Santosh Devi climbs up to the rooftop of her house to clean her
solar panels. The shining, mirrored panels, which she installed herself
last year, are a striking sight against the simple one-storey homes of
her village. No less remarkable is that this 19-year-old, semi-literate
woman from the backwaters of Rajasthan has broken through India's rigid caste system to become
the country's first Dalit solar engineer.
Growing up, Santosh had to avoid the upper caste people of her village
or cover her face in their presence. Nowadays, they seek her help. "For
them, I am a solar engineer who can repair and install the light installations," she says. "From looking down on the ground when higher
caste people passed to looking them in the eye, I never imagined this would have been possible."
Santosh trained to be a solar engineer at the Barefoot College in
Tilonia, 100km from Jaipur. The college was set up in 1972 by Sanjit
"Bunker" Roy to teach rural people skills with which they could
transform their villages, regardless of gender, caste, ethnicity, age or
schooling. The college claims to have trained 15,000 women in skills
including solar engineering, healthcare and water testing. Roy, 65, says
his approach – low cost, decentralised and community driven – works by
"capitalising on the resources already present in the villages".
The college, spread over eight acres, runs entirely on solar energy, maintained by the
Barefoot solar engineers. Since the solar course was launched in 2005,
more than 300 Barefoot engineers have brought power to more than 13,000
homes across India. A further 6,000 households, in more than 120 villages in 24 countries from Afghanistan to Uganda, have been powered
on the same model. Only villages that are inaccessible, remote and non-electrified are considered for solar power
. A drop in the ocean,perhaps – 44% of rural households in India have no electricity – but
these women are making an important contribution to the nation's power
needs. Rural India, comprising 72% of the population, continues to
depend on fossil fuels, which will be a setback for the country's
environmental goals unless the government is able to transfer this dependence to renewable sources.
In India, Roy's engineers already save at least 1.5m litres of kerosene
a year, which would otherwise have been used to power lamps and stoves,
according to Bhagwat Nandan, the co-ordinator of the college's solar division.
Marked by a stick fence, Santosh's predominantly Dalit village, Balaji
Ki Dhani, is a hamlet consisting of about 20 mud houses scattered over
five acres of semi-arid land. The 18th-century rural set-up is the cement-built home
where Santosh lives with her husband, baby son and in-laws. The house has two bedrooms, two mud huts in the
courtyard – one housing goats, the other a kitchen – and a third room
that functions as Santosh's workshop. Here she spends around six hours a
day repairing solar lanterns. Santosh built the house with money she made as a solar engineer. Thanks
to her, the other households in the village now have solar power too.
Under the Barefoot model, they pay a monthly fee based on how much they
would have spent on kerosene, batteries, wood and candles. Some of the
money goes towards the solar engineer's monthly stipend, while the rest pays for components and spare parts.
As is the custom in rural India, women do the bulk of the housework and
agricultural labour. Although Santosh doesn't work in the fields any
more, at home she is endlessly busy. If she is not tending to her 17-month-old son, she is milking the cattle, feeding the livestock,
attending to customers at the small grocery store she runs from home and
repairing solar lanterns. She is quick-witted and confident, although
she admits the first day at college was scary.
Since she became a Barefoot solar engineer, the total income of the
family has doubled. "Before, I worked in the fields the whole day and
then I had to rush back so that I could cook dinner while there was
still daylight. I hardly got a moment to breathe," says Santosh.
At the Barefoot College, the women learn through listening and
memorising, using colour-coded charts that help them to remember the
permutation and combination of the wires without needing to read or write.
Solar
lantren made by Barefoot
Solar lantern made by Barefoot solar engineers in Tilonia village,
Ajmer, Rajasthan, India The model is being replicated in Africa, Latin America and south Asia.
The first batch of Barefoot engineers from Tanzania, Uganda, Gambia,
Malawi, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Bhutan completed their
six-month residential training at Tilonia between 2008 and 2009, and
have since set up solar power in their villages.
Any woman over 35 from a remote, inaccessible, non-electrified area can
enrol for the international course, provided she is backed by her village. As Roy says: "It makes sense to choose women, especially older
women, as they are more loyal to their roots and less impatient to try
out new pastures, which men are wont to do as soon as they are given a certificate."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk
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