Barefoot Solar Sisterhood (Chapter 1)
Almost a month has gone by since the Solar Mamas have arrived at the Barefoot College, the green heart of the desert of Rajasthan. The college that will allow them to become solar engineers and in 6 months be able to bring home the energy of the sun. It has been a month of orientation and adjustment, the challenges of being in a foreign country, in an unknown place, surrounded by languages never heard and faces never seen before.
A month of hopes and doubts turned into reality. A month in which the bond between each of them starts changing their perception of being a woman, realising that beyond nation states and race and ethnicity, women all around the world carry the same burdens, live the same lives and sometimes even dare to dream the same dreams.
From Uganda to Fiji, though Turkey, Afghanistan, Tanzania and Madagascar, from Argentina to Myanmar and Philippines the Barefoot Solar Sisterhood embraces the earth with female wisdom and care.
Botwasna and Afghanistan, so apart but so close
A dialogue of civilisations sparks in laughter within the walls of the training centre, walls that can tell stories of sisterhood and dedication. Walls that tell the stories of all the women who have dared to learn and dream behind those desks since 1996, the beginning of the journey towards the sun by the Barefoot College Solar Initiative. A journey that has involved over a thousand women across over 89 countries around the world. Three continents are represented in the classroom, a display of cultures and races so different and unique, so distant but so close. The women have already established bonds across boundaries that seem insurmountable.
The Rain Dance
Today during the class, the rain came to wash out the heat. Two Mamas came out to dance together blessed by the water dropping on their smiles; they come from the aridest regions of the world. One of them lives near the Turkish Syrian border, and the other is from Afghanistan. They confessed me they haven’t seen a single drop from the sky in the last years. The sky withdrawing his blessing that would rinse away the sins of war on their beautiful lands spoiled by hatred and blood. It was a moment of joy and relief, the rain cooling down the heat and washing away the fatigue of the first month. Nurturing the earth and reviving the colours of nature and life.
Guman, our Solar Mama’s Master Trainer
Here Guman Ji teaches how to master the energy of the sun transforming it not only physically, but culturally. Clean energy access means not only increase in safety, hygiene, education, quality of life, care for the planet.
It means the revolution of these women’s’ relation to nature. Like the fire for Prometheus, solar light allows an almost cosmological revolution for some of these women. For these women, who have never travelled on a plane, whose gaze has most of the time never extended beyond the ‘visible and traceable’ comfort zone of their districts, the journey to India transforms their way of seeing the world, their place in the world. The friendship with their classmates creates a worldwide sisterhood, a safe place of equality and confidence, a place of refuge in which – even back home on their own – they can recognise themselves in the lives of other thousands solar engineers around the world.
Barefoot College strives to repair the past of environmental exploitation of the earth, and it’s most fragile and sacred people, to build together a future of equality and dignity. These women will come home again in 6 months, as Barefoot Solar Engineers, able to install and maintain solar household systems in their village. They will come home as stewards of their community and of all the other women that share their same destiny. The one of becoming the carriers of a practical knowledge that will revolutionise their way of living. A leap into a sustainable future.
One that doesn’t look at the cities as the land of promises, the one that is built on the respect of traditional wisdom as much as into a democratic technological innovation. The future that trusts the intimate resilience of rural communities and hands to them the capacity to lead their own path.
Technology Demystified
sustainAble thinking 