Durante la Ciudad de las Ideas se presentó Bunker Roy un Visionario creador de una universidad en la India que prepara abuelas para convertirlas en Técnicas de Energía Solar.
Este año se están preparando varias mujeres de México.
Consulte las notas proporcionadas por el mismo Bunker Roy en exclusiva para www.diariojudio.com
THE FIRST SOLAR MAMAS OF MEXICO
Bunker Roy
By March 2014 history will have been made in Mexico. In a unique Public Private Peoples Partnership between the Government of Mexico, the Government of India and ENEL Green Power 4 illiterate rural grandmothers from the Region of Oaxaca will have become the first rural women solar engineers of the country.
They were deliberated selected from the region hard hit by severe floods with their roads and buildings and churches destroyed. Cut off from the mainland by sea, deprived of any conventional grid electricity from ever reaching these remote houses, over 500 houses on the island of Cachimbo are dependent on kerosene, candles and torch batteries for basic lighting.
There could not have been a more deserving community. Untouched by Multinationals because their land has no commercial value, unreached by the local and central government even after the floods the only local community based organizations to be found are like Colectivo Melendre struggling with funds to provide basic needs to a few hundred people. It was fitting Enel Green Power(EGP) got the Barefoot College in touch with this small organization.
Colectivo Melendre arranged the meeting with the whole community, obtained written commitments how much each family were prepared to pay as a monthly contribution for the use of the solar lights and finally in an open transparent process selected the 4 grandmothers to be selected for training in India. They arranged for the passports, medical examinations and filling the forms for the Indian Embassy. The Barefoot College through the Indian Embassy arranged for the air tickets and costs of 6 months training. Enel Green Power will provide funds for the solar electrification of 2 whole villages.
They are being trained in one of the few Gandhian organizations left in India. The only community based organization of the 43 official training institutes recognized by the Government of India By 2012 the Barefoot College will have reached 54 developing countries around the world training over 500 solar mamas to solar electrify 45,000 houses in over 1,000 villages.
The training institution is like none other in the world. Illiterate rural grandmothers are being trained without using the written or spoken word to be confident and competent solar engineers. They will know more about fabrication, installation, repair and maintenance of fixed solar units and solar lanterns than any graduate after 5 years of any University in the developing world. The Barefoot College is against all projects that exploit the rural poor, abuse national resources, discriminate against women or encourages dependency on urban skills. The approach is to let the communities take all the decisions so that they own the process. The barefoot model is the Gandhian way. This was agreed before there was any written agreement signed with EGP.
The location of the project was specifically chosen to introduce the barefoot gandhian way in one of the poorest and neglected areas of Mexico. Not just talk about it and agitate and let communities suffer but demonstrate how they can own the process and manage and control their own development. So where there was no problem of mining or windmills the gandhians in Mexico invented one.
Two Mexican versions of Gandhians living an expensive lifestyle in Mexico living off consultancies from an Gandhian University in India presumed to question and judge the Gandhian philosophy of the Barefoot College and wrote this to the Indian Ambassador, “ an institution that claim to operate in the name of Gandhi (one of the most respected figures in the world and an example to follow in our country, especially in this hard time) is supported by companies that are depredating the planet and washing their image with our people…….I would like to request you to deny any support that could sustain this farce. Mr Roy doesn’t want to have a dialogue with us.” This coming from arm chair gandhians living a cushy life in the city and speaking on behalf of the rural poor in Mexico.
Better sense prevailed. Both the Government of India and the Government of Mexico jointly supported the 4 women to come to India under the India Technical Economic Cooperation(ITEC)Programme and they are presently in the Barefoot College.
The Solar Mamas will do the country of Mexico proud when they come back and solar electrify the first non-electrified villages with Indian technology.
Illiterate grandmothers from rural villages from 10 countries around the world training to become solar engineers at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, India
