The Bird Totas and Tree of Life hangings and Pillow Covers available at P’lovers come from The Barefoot College (www.barefootcollege.org), founded in 1972 in Tilonia, Rajasthan, one of India’s largest, driest, and poorest states. The Barefoot College is based on the belief that solutions to rural problems lie within the community. The programs and initiatives of the Barefoot College are designed to benefit the ‘poorest of the poor’ and improve their lives by addressing basic needs for water, electricity, housing, health, education and income.

The Barefoot College encourages learning by doing and focuses on practical knowledge and skills. It many programs include training and service delivery in solar electrification, rainwater harvesting, environmental restoration, health promotion, and education.

For example, hundreds of ‘solar engineers’ have been trained who can now help communities use the sun to provide electricity throughout not only India but also communities in Africa, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. Over 3000 solar lanterns have been manufactured at the Barefoot College to support this work.

In the realm of education, over 250 night schools have been established in communities throughout India which enable over 6000children who have to tend cattle during the day to attend school at night. They learn by solar lantern and commit to attending school for five years.

The Barefoot College is redeveloping 500 hectares of wasteland into useful pastureland. The aim is to ensure that this redeveloped land is drought resistant and able to be productive for years.

Over 200 health centres and all the health workers trained by the Barefoot College have improved the health of thousands of people and have reduced the rates of infant and maternal mortality in those communities to well below the national average.

The Barefoot College’s main campus occupies 80,000 square feet and includes a residence, library, dining room, meeting halls, 10-bed hospital, pathology lab, water testing unit, teacher training unit, craft store, internet café and a 700,000 litre rainwater harvesting unit. The campus is fully solar electrified.

In 2006, the Barefoot College won the prestigious $1 Million Alcan Prize for Sustainability.

P’lovers is proud to be a tiny part of the Barefoot College story.

To learn more about The Barefoot College, check out www.barefootcollege.org; or www.tilonia.com; or read pages 359-362 in Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century; or log on to www.WorldChanging.com.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more Videos see: http://ca.youtube.com/user/barefootcollege