TEDx Khartoum 30 April 2011

The Barefoot Solar Engineers Doing the impossible ...

The End

Meeting ... Bunker Roy

Our Keynote Speaker At the International Conference on Appropriate Technology , Kigali, Rwanda, November 2008

Described his Barefoot College approach for: Community partnership Collective decision making Learning by doing

A quiet revolution in: Ethiopia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Mali, Mauritania,

Cameroon, Rwanda, The Gambia, Benin, Uganda, Tanzania

Achieved by Barefoot Solar

Engineers in 2008

Meet the Barefoot Solar Engineers

The Barefoot College

Founded in 1986 and located in Tilonia, India Managed by the poor for the poor Believe that formal education is not a condition to become

an engineer Focus on illiterate and semi-literate rural women, most are

grandmothers who never left their village Practice v Theory … Paper v Community Qualification

Follow Mahatma Gandhi simple life and work style Their approach has been applied in 13 States in India and a

number of the least developed countries around the world

It simply works!

Come to Sudan!

Community-based

Organisations Present at First

Selection Meeting

Bunker visited

Achieved by Sudan's First

Barefoot Solar Engineers

in 2011

Final Selection

Zeinab Balandia, Ruya Organisation

Suliman TayaraAssociation of Small Farmers Group

Off to India March 2009

Time to say goodbye ...

Mirri is only the beginning

Ruya Organisation visits Mirri after village selection

Settling in …

Learning other skills …

Not only were they learning technical skills

… They were exposed to other cultures which

enhances their ability to be innovators

Barefoot Solar Engineers arriving in Khartoum September 2009

Family and Friends from Ombadda Karror waiting at the airport for the Engineer's arrival

There were so many supporters that there weren't enough seats!

An emotional home coming

While waiting for the Equipment … producing

chalk, candles, paper bags...

Sept. 2009 – Sept. 2010

Organising exhibitions

Equipment arrives (by car, cart, boat) in Mirri

Work started

The community was always curious and learning from them

They are teaching the community …

which is how the project can spread to

other parts of the Sudan

Some members from the

Project Village Committee that

included a diverse set of people

Filling the batteries

Distributing solar units to each

household

Panels are up in Mirri

Anxiously waiting for night to come

Think of how much having light will have an impact on children's education

That Moment … Light is on in MirriFebruary 2011

Next village …

Aldorod Tabaldia

Those four innovators have empowered themselves

They are one of the wonders of their community ...

The engineers and those they train can light the whole of rural Sudan -- if we …

have pro-poor policies and mechanisms in place learn from and invest in models that work

Although this is a community led/owned project -- we need to … Thank all who donated to, or facilitated, a step in the project,

but those are too numerous to mention. Find them on:

http://www.yaarti.net/barefoot/barefootinsudan.html

But most of all -- we need to …

Salute the courage and resilience of those women...

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you

and then you win.”

Mahatma Gandhi

This is really only the beginning …