Learning Journeys: The Unprint Challenge meets the Barefoot College
How to bridge two separate worlds? How do we bring lives and experiences together to harness critical knowledge on climate change? How do we turn around this crucial moment of history, where communities are already paying the dues of our debt to Mother Earth, into a common path of change?
The urban community of Yerwada in Pune was born as a temporary settlement around one of India’s biggest prisons. As many of those places in urban areas of the developing world, the settlement has become one of the largest ‘informal’ neighbourhood of the city.
That means that 3rd generation dwellers still lack access to the most basic facilities, lacks that in urban areas become even more challenging due to population pressure, and the problems related to surviving in the dance of contrasts of the Megalopolis of the world.
A view of Yerwada
As distant as much as similar is the reality faced by the rural inhabitants of the desert region of Rajasthan, in Tilonia. Youths here, face very similar challenges to the kids in Yerwada, as do their families. A similar kind of isolation. Hard life, hard work, hard access to schooling and ways to improve the quality and dreams of one’s life.
The only difference is that in Tilonia a unique organisation lives and prosper, one that strives to create long-term viable solutions to the hardship of local communities. From 1972 the Barefoot College provides relief and access to solutions in healthcare, energy and clean water, education and human rights awareness for the rural poor.
At the Barefoot College, people have ‘dared to dream’, and make their dreams a reality. Not in the hope of moving away from their communities, but working hard to ensure a better future for them, exactly where they are.
Discussion on Global Warming at Govardampura Night School
In Yerwada also somebody has dared to dream: Akshada, Akil, Shaurya, Rukshana, Pankaj, are the students that have been selected for the Unprint Challenge. Thanks to Nishit and Gaurav their former teachers in the Yerwada school managed by Teach for India, thanks to their passion and a crowdfunding campaign, the group has made its way to Tilonia, to learn and experience the Barefoot Philosophy.
The encounter between the Unprint Challenge and the Barefoot College has resulted into a 3 days learning journey that complies with the MDG 13 (climate action) as well as 4 (Quality Education) and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).
Once at Barefoot College the students were united with a group local youngsters, all students of the school that the Barefoot College has started in the aim of improving and promoting a revolution in rural education, the Shiskshani Ketan School.
This encounter has created a unique platform for interaction and exchange between two groups of young people that come from such different worlds. A chance to get to know each other, a chance to understand that their experience share similarities, and that their lives are not so apart from each other. They have worked together on water testing and filtering, on water harvesting. In the green setting of the nursery, they have learned about local plants, the inner laws of biodiversity, and the treasurable knowledge that lies into common people in the rural areas, that harness traditional wisdom to safeguard our future.
They have discussed waste management and composting, and how to use it to grow your own food in such harsh environment. They have built solar lanterns, and finally, they have realised it is in community action, ownership and awareness, that lies the power to change our reality and turn history around. We have all found the hope that even if the clock might be ticking, we might still be on time to reverse it.
Solar Lanter Workshop with Lila Ji (Solar Engineer and trainer)
This happens in the everyday attitude we project onto our lives. And in how we consciously choose to make a difference. And this idea of agency is crucial for the next generation. The experience of Barefoot College proves that every single person, no matter how isolated, can lead change when in conscious possession of the right knowledge and tools.
So to come back to my initial questions, how do we turn fear of the future, the failure of our relation to Nature and it’s creatures, into a positive reaction, a common project for all the world communities to ally for. A global and local path toward change and awareness?
‘In unity is power’: by bridging the gaps between cultures and contexts, by cherishing what unites us instead of what separates us, and by recognising the inner bond that each of us has to Mother Nature, then we can really find common solutions to the universal threat of Global Environmental Degradation.
I have seen the seeds for this future sawn in those three days. The light of hope in these young eyes. May each bring along a small sapling of change in their lives and in their communities. May the teaching of Barefoot College and of the amazing Mentors that have made this adventure possible, become the roots of their wisdom.
And may leaves of innovations grow on the branches of tradition, to work cooperatively towards a better future.
sustainAble thinking 