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Approach
Since its inception, the long term objective of the Barefoot College has been to work
with marginalized, exploited and impoverished rural poor, living on less than $1 a day,
and lift them over the poverty line with dignity and self respect. The dream was to
establish a rural college in India that was built by and exclusively for the poor.
What the rural, impoverished and marginalised think important is reflected and internalised
in the beliefs of the College. The Barefoot College is one of the few places in India where
Mahatma Gandhi’s spirit of service and thoughts on sustainability, are still alive and respected.
The College has adopted the Gandhian ideas into its lifestyle and work ethics, holding it true
and relevant universally even in the 21st Century.
Gandhi’s central belief was that the knowledge, skills and wisdom found in villages should
be used for its development before getting skills from outside. The College has applied rural
traditional knowledge and skills to build homes for the homeless, collect rain water in rural
schools and community where potable water sources are scarce, as well as to spread socio-economic
messages at the grassroot level through puppetry. Only technologies that can be understood and
controlled by rural community have been introduced to improve the quality of life of the poor.
Gandhi believed that sophisticated technology should be used in rural India, but it should be
in the hands and in control of the poor communities so that they are not dependent or exploited.
The Barefoot College has demystified technologies and decentralised their uses by transferring
the access, control, management and ownership of sophisticated technologies to rural men and women,
who can barely read and write. The College believes that even uneducated poor have the right
to use technologies to improve their life and skills.
Gandhi once said that there is a difference between Literacy and Education.
The Barefoot College
believes that ‘literacy’ is what one acquires in school, but ‘education’ is what one gains from
family, traditions, culture, environment and personal experiences. Both are important for individual
growth. At the College, everyone is considered an education resource, the teacher as well as the
student and the literate as well as illiterate. Therefore, the Barefoot College is a radical departure
from the traditional concept of a ‘college’.
Gandhi believed in the equality of women. The Barefoot College has struggled to train village women,
in areas that have traditionally been dominated by men. Since 1972, more than 6,525 unassuming
housewives, mothers & grandmothers, midwives, farmers, daily wage labourers and small shopkeepers,
who represent the profile of rural women from poor agricultural communities, have been trained as
Barefoot midwives, handpump mechanics, solar engineers, artisans, weavers, balsevika (crèche teachers),
parabolic solar cooker engineers, FM radio operators and fabricators, dentist, masons, and day and
night school teachers. Women who are single mothers, middle-aged, divorced, physically challenged or
illiterate are prioritised for training over others because they need the employment opportunity and
income the most.
Why Barefoot?
- It is symbolic of the recognition, respect and importance the College gives to the
collective knowledge and skill that the poor have;
- By calling it ‘barefoot’ we want to give its application a unique category of its own that
is superior, sophisticated and enduring. Far more valuable than any other paper qualification.
Why College?
Because it is a Centre for learning, with a difference:-
- A centre of learning and unlearning
- Where the teacher is the learner and the learner a teacher;
- Where everyone is expected to keep an open mind, try new and crazy ideas, make mistakes and try again;
- Where even those who have no degrees are welcome to come, work and learn;
- Where those are accepted who are not eligible for even the lowest government jobs;
- Where tremendous value is placed on the dignity of labour, of sharing and those are willing to work with their hands;
- Where no certificates, degrees or diplomas are given.
The Barefoot College is viewed as a success story because it is shown as an example of what
is possible if very poor people are allowed to develop themselves. It is a new concept that
has stood the test of time. What the College has effectively demonstrated is how sustainable
the combination of traditional knowledge (barefoot) and demystified modern skills can be, when
the tools are in the hands of those who are considered ‘very ordinary’ and are written off by
urban society.
The ‘Barefoot approach’ may be viewed as a ‘concept’, ‘solution’, ‘revolution’, ‘design’ or an
‘inspiration’ but it is really a simple message that can easily be replicated by the poor and
for the poor in neglected and underprivileged communities anywhere the world. Thus, the demystified
and decentralised 'barefoot approach’ of community management, control and ownership has demonstrated
the power of simple solutions.
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