Indian Women Become Electrified

Enterprising Indians have found a way to work towards energy self-sufficiency and reducing poverty. They are training women to build and maintain solar energy units, and in that way empower women and build power in other ways.

This activity, called the solar power initiative is administered by the Barefoot College in Tilonia, a village in Rajasthan, India. It was founded by an Indian activist by the name of Bunker Roy in 1972. His focus, and that of the college, is to help Indian villagers to become self-sufficient. A particular focus is on the development of women's skills. Most of these women came to the college without formal education and living in extreme poverty, often abandoned or widowed. Now they have found confidence by learning new skills that are directed towards helping them as well as providing needed energy sources. Women from India, Afghanistan, Ghana and Syria are all being trained at the college. They then go on to train other women who pass on their knowledge to build and run solar energy units. It is the goal to be a force for change to according to Ms. Magazine transform lives around the world. This is a very important enterprise, according to the information on this development, because roughly 40% of the world’s population, primarily in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa don't have the modern fuels to cook their food and heat their homes. More than of the 2.6 4 billion people have no electricity, most of them living in world areas where they have no access to utilities. The project of training women is to help provide sustainable economic practices to alleviate poverty .Roughly 40 percent of the world's population, living predominantly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, do not have modern fuels for cooking and heating. Of these 2.64 billion people, 1.6 billion have no access to electricity, three-quarters of them living in rural areas," according to open democracy providing people with useful tools and training is part of what is important in human rights movements. Training like this can help poor people and can deliver significant change that will allow them to power their homes, places of work, classrooms and food sources. Poverty has been a concern within India ever since its independence. Millions of people are unable to meet their basic needs, especially in the rural villages. Learning to develop solar energy may help great numbers of people have acceptable minimum living standards, which many presently do not have. This must be good news for India and its women as well as the developed nations like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and France who are encouraging solar systems as well. The lessons from India this time may be positive indeed.