Barli Institute Growth 2004 – 2005

Community Volunteers

The community volunteers undergo a six-month training course which expands their knowledge, skills and experience in literacy, health, environmental education, and personality development, as well as income generation, and vocational skills to improve the quality of life for themselves, their families and their communities. At the end of the course, the trainees appear in the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) cutting and tailoring exam and the results have been an average of 85% passing.

Grassroots Trainers

In the first six months of their training, the Grassroots trainers follow the same curriculum as the Community Volunteers. Over the next six months, they improve their vocational skills and develop their abilities as trainers by helping to facilitate classes and acting as peer tutors. They learn the skills necessary to use the Institute curriculum to conduct classes and to establish education and health programmes when they return to their communities. They also appear in the cutting and tailoring exam under the NIOS and have the opportunity to appear in the NIOS typing exam upon the completion of the year long course.

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Curriculum for Change

The Institute's curriculum is designed to bring about change in the traditional attitudes and practices that impede the advancement of equality and unity. It aims to facilitate the initiation and execution of development activities in the communities, to increase awareness and knowledge of the potential for improving social and economic conditions in the communities and to impart the skills and knowledge needed to initiate development activities, improve health and nutrition, raise household income, increase literacy, and protect the environment. The four subjects taught at the Institute are Personality Development, Literacy, Health and Hygiene, and Vocational Skills.

In their personality development class, trainees learn about the role they can play in the development of their communities by first developing themselves. They study emotional and mental capabilities, physical and material capabilities, and social and spiritual capabilities.

Literacy is at the heart of the curriculum and is interwoven into all subjects. On top of their regular literacy instruction, they are given opportunities in all of their classes to practice reading, writing and numeracy. Through practical application, trainees learn to keep records, make patterns according to specific measurements, calculate stock, estimate costs, write a receipt, manage accounts and approach a bank or government official with a request. Health and hygiene form a substantial part of the curriculum.

Great emphasis is placed on encouraging healthy traditional practices and dispelling harmful myths. Trainees learn to promote personal, home and community hygiene and sanitation. They acquire knowledge of common diseases and their prevention with good nutrition, safe drinking water, and a healthy lifestyle. They also learn about pre and post-natal care, child immunization, spacing of children, and raising healthy children.

Community Volunteers learn cutting and tailoring, dress making, along with reviving and developing ethnic arts and crafts. Some of them also choose to learn fabric design, batik, block printing, hand and machine embroidery and beadwork. All the subjects are taught holistically, with lessons from each class being integrated into the other classes. Participatory and peer-tutoring methods are used help to create an enabling environment in which the trainees can take charge of their own learning.

In addition to the regular classes, specialized subject programs are conducted by outside agencies such as: Conservation of the Environment, and Prevention and Treatment of Kidney Disorders.

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Outreach Centers

Despite the continual growth of Barli, the programmes at the Institute have been unable to fully serve the large numbers of women who need the sort of training that it offers. This is partially because the campus can only accommodate a relatively small number. It is also because it is very difficult for many women to leave their homes for 6 months or 1 year to take the training. It is for this reason that the Institute has opened three outreach centers. Two are in villages, Padria and Chavni Pathaar in the Bhopal district, and one in Gurgoan. Through these centers, the number of women being trained with the Barli curriculum and its programmes has increased to have wider application. So far the Institute used to target to train a maximum of 135 women per year, but with this extension over 400 women will be trained every year.

Evaluation and Planning

There is an ongoing monitoring and evaluation process for the project in the form of reflection, action and consultation involving cooperation between the Institute staff, trainees and the board of directors. This means that at all levels, among the staff, trainees, their parents and trainers, reflection meetings are held together to determine the effectiveness of the programmes and to get feedback from the communities and graduates. Consulting about what has been learned helps to decide the next course of action.

Staff Take Seminars

Staff of the Institute participated in many local seminars, workshops, training programmes, and meetings. The director attended the Beijing +10 First National Consultation 2004: Asia Regional Watch Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal, followed by the Second National Consultation Feb 2005 in Delhi and presented testimonies which were incorporated in the NGO Country Report for Beijing + 10 to be presented at the U.N. The director and manager attended a National Meeting organized by PSS Central Institute of Vocational Education OF NCERT and presented the Institute's power point presentation along with a paper entitled “Sustainable Community Development Through Vocational Training of Rural and Tribal Women as Human Resources: A hands-on experience at Barli Development Institute for Rural Women” in Sagar university. In the valedictory session special mention was made about Barli programmes as a model for unreached people. In addition, many articles and research papers on a variety of development related issues such as: the use of the SK-14 Parabolic Solar cookers to empower rural women in India. Articles about the Institute's literacy methodology were published in One World South Asia Magazine on website, Education and Globalization. This helps to document and share the concepts, practices and experiences of the Institute with a greater number of people.

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