Barli Institute Current Programs
Gardening and Horticulture
Each Morning between 7:00am and 9:00am the trainees and staff work in the garden and clean the building and surrounding areas, they learn how to maintain the garden. They also learn how to grow vegetables and fruits, and how to maintain soil fertility, better methods of irrigation, different methods of composting including vermi composting, raise and maintain nurseries and other methods of plant propagation and growing other crops on a larger scale for storage such as potatoes, onion and garlic, peas and beans and spices including turmeric and chilies.
They learn to prepare and raise tree nurseries and flower gardens, transplanting same, water, soil and energy conservation. The institute gardens include fruits trees like guava, mango, lemons and limes, jamun, mulberry and many other fruits i.e. banana, papaya, almond, tamrin.
All the ingredients for the Institute's meals with exception of wheat, rice and salt etc. are provided for by the garden, all vegetables are harvested just prior to cooking.
topPersonality Development
From 10:00am to 11:00am the trainees take part in personality development class. Personality Development is a combined effect of the training in the class, and their life styles at the Institute, behavior of the Institute staff, volunteers and the other people who interact with them and their overall exposure in a peer group learning atmosphere. The curriculum of personality development includes to train them to conceive something, visualize, plan, organize, make action plans, become conscious decision makers, implement and share their successes with others.
An important part of it is to develop leadership skills, taking initiative by recognizing their purpose in life as, equal human beings, importance of role of women in developing society, respecting and reinforcing the value of their culture. Institute tries to inculcate in them scientific temperament and spirit of inquiry, foster ethical values like freedom from prejudices of all kinds, to encourage children's education, especially the girl child, human values and virtues. They are trained to become sensitive to social development issues, see work as worship and service as a prayer, foster love, peace and unity, discuss social issues and act to solve them, mobilizing and developing local resources, financial and human.
They also learn to recognize their self-worth, self-confidence founded in the principle of consultation in all matters. They learn communication techniques, how to consult in decision making and problem solving, how to take part in group discussion, how to listen, learn how to speak and address an audience and how to report.
Literacy
Though literacy is incorporated in all subjects, formal literacy classes take place each day between 11:00am and 12:00 noon and 5:00pm and 6:00pm. The level of their literacy is raised from illiteracy to the level of being able to sit at National Open School theory exams at the end of the six month course.
The Institute provides each trainee with basic literacy in Hindi to enable her to understand herself and the world in which she lives. This enables her to assume responsibility for finding solutions to personal problems and to take positive action in the context of a changing society. She learns to read, write and understand simple forms, notices, messages, letters, signs and simple books. She learns numeric and simple arithmetical calculations and the measurement of length, weight and time.
All subjects at the Institute are taught holistically - interwoven with literacy. For example, in learning gardening the women learn to count the tools, trees and fruits, to weigh them and to write their names. In health instruction, they learn to write the names of different diseases, preventive measures, to take body weight and height. They learn to understand and record time for immunizations and for pre- and post-natal care. The newly learned Hindi is immediately put to use in measuring cloth and the size of person for whom the garment is being made, making patterns, cutting and stitching according to measurements.
Trainees learn through practical experience to write a receipt, calculate stock, estimate costs, count cash and give change. They also learn to approach a bank or a local government official for the purpose of applying for loans.
To prevent them from falling back into illiteracy, they are encouraged to write postcards to the Institute. All the news, views and stories of the graduates, plus some educational messages, are published in a monthly newsletter, "KOKILA," (nightingale), which is sent to all the graduates from the Institute. The most promising trainees are encouraged to continue their education through the National Open School system.
Pre and Post Natal Care
In the villages where most of the trainees come from, there is very little or no access to Pre and Post Natal Care, more than 90% of all deliveries takeplace in the home, and are assisted by poorly or untrained, so called mid-wives (even men). There are a lot of cultural and social practices i.e. cutting the umbilical cord with an arrow or sickle. This is the reason that there is a strong emphasis on this subject during their training at the Institute. The trainees are trained in taking care of a pregnant woman, physiology of conception, symptoms of pregnancy, social practices relating to pregnancy, care of pregnant women including immunization, check ups, problems expected during pregnancy, how to identify emergencies, solutions, preventions, importance of rest, dealing with family and the social environment, and preparing for delivery.
Post natal care involves training in safe delivery, immediate care for the new born, tying and cutting the umbilical cord, handling and disposal of the placenta, immediate care for the mother, hygiene, breast feeding, importance of becoming a mother, and the responsibility of becoming a mother, and the role of the family.
Mother and Child Care
Training in caring for the mother and child includes, to train them in cleanliness, massage, clothing etc. breast feeding, weaning, nutrition, immunization, precautions against home accidents, treatment, management of low birth weight. The value of registration of birth and death, and knowledge of child diseases, causes, precautions and treatment are also taught.
Health and Hygiene
The curriculum in health and hygiene is designed to provide the skills and develop the potential of the trainees and their communities to deal with health problems by preventive measures and practical solutions.
Trainees learn personal and home hygiene and sanitation, child care and nutrition, the prevention of water-borne disease, the value and importance of immunization and pre and post natal care, caring for the sick or elderly, the damaging effect of alcohol and domestic violence, and the basics of waste management. Trainees learn to replace superstitious practices with medical care from qualified doctors.
Caring for the Environment
One of the significant component of the Institute's curriculum is 'Caring for the Environment' as a spiritual responsibility which is taught in theory focused on environment and sustainable development, care for the environment as service to the community, valuable source of home and natural remedies, value of indigenous knowledge, focused on educating them on the importance of healthy environment and to care for land, water, animals and forests.
In practicality, they learn to raise tree nurseries, planting and maintaining and trees, maintaining and protecting them, learning about the sources of buying seeds, plants, learning about energy conservation techniques like composting, vermi culture, water, soil, reuse of biodegradable and other products, i.e. waste management etc.
Conservation & Solar Cooking
For the last 17 years, the Institute has been a leader in researching, experimenting with, and using solar cooking technologies. In the mid-1980s, it began using solar box cookers for some of its cooking and promoting their use in the villages. In May 1998, a 7.5 square-meter parabolic solar cooker was installed the Institute; another was installed in 2000. Now, for approximately 250 days in a year, 100 percent of all cooking uses solar energy. Further, trainees are shown the savings to the environment—and their time—that are possible through the use of solar devices, and they are encouraged to propagate the use of solar box cookers, highly efficient parabolic concentrating cookers, and other energy saving devices in their villages.
The Institute is currently involved in manufacturing SK14 cookers. So far, nine of these concentrating parabolic solar cookers, which are capable of cooking for 10-12 people at once, have been set up in outlying villages by the Institute in a pilot program. The Institute plans to distribute 40 more such cookers, funded mainly by primary school children in Austria, in the coming months.
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