Project at a Glance

The Barli Institute for the Development of Rural Women has worked in India since 1985 to increase gender awareness and equality by addressing the challenges confronted by socially and economically marginalized girls and women in Madhya Pradesh, one of the poorest areas of India. Barli uses training combined with practical knowledge to assist women in building their capacity to improve the lives of their families, their communities and themselves.

IMPACT
In 2011
• 150 women trained on-site
• 120 women trained at extension centers
• To date over 6,000 women trained from 500 villages throughout central India.

About the Project

Barli's mission is “To initiate and build the process of sustainable development through empowerment of young rural and tribal women to become agents of social change. In this process Barli is focused on building their capacity with a wide range of skills and knowledge needed to improve the lives of their families, their communities and themselves.”

Barli uses education to empower young women to overcome systemic obstacles they face in achieving education, health and employment. Training combines practical knowledge to assist women in advancing their material well-being, and education to help raise self-esteem - providing abstract skills that can assist them in pursuing their goals.

The practical skills taught by the institute assist women in leading healthy, productive lives. Literacy classes aim to achieve reading fluency in Hindi within six months. Pre-natal and post-natal care classes are vital for the continual health of women in the area, since over 90% of all birth deliveries take place in the home. The courses cover, among many other topics, the physiology of conception, how to identify emergencies, preventative care, safe delivery practices, and parenting skills. Gardening and horticulture classes teach women methods for irrigation, composting and cultivation. Other practical skills taught include how to form and run micro-credit groups, and how to manage a small business.
Skills taught by the school also focus on empowerment and character building, so that women can feel capable of charting the course of their own lives. The curriculum of personality development includes training in conceiving, planning and executing visions, becoming conscious decision makers, and sharing successes with others.

Barli Institute has received numerous awards. It was recognized by UNESCO as one of the top 100 education projects in developing countries, and was listed on the UN Environmental Program Global 500 Roll of Honor.

Background and History

According to UNICEF statistics, every year 10% of girls die before their first birthday, and 8.5% die before the age of five. The total mortality rate for women per year in European countries is equal to the total mortality rate of women in just one week in India. All governmental and non-governmental organizations and UNICEF report that women work more, eat less, and rest less compared to men - while they give birth to children and care for them. Women also have to cope with spousal beatings and drunkenness.

Rural and Tribal Women's Conditions: Spend a night in Jhabua or Dhar district and you will see women waking up at 3am to start grinding flour for the day's food. When it is cold, men and children sit around the fire while the women feed the animals, carry cow dung, cook, sweep, wash utensils, carry water etc. In the villages, men simply bring home another wife if the work load in the house and land is too much for one wife to handle. When a boy child goes to school, his mother will help him get ready.

Generally he wears trousers and avoids field work; he thinks that it is beneath him. He has a bicycle, shoes and freedom to roam in the market, while his sister goes with the animals to the meadow, or she will go to collect wood, wearing ragged clothes. Before marriage she has few chances to go out – if she is lucky she may attend a few festivals.

In this context, Barli Development Institute for Rural Women started its first training in June 1985 with nineteen women. The Institute, based in Indore, has completed hundreds of residential training sessions covering sixteen life skills programs for more than 4,000 young women from 450 villages of Madhya Pradesh and other parts of India. Each of these women has returned to their village and worked with the community to establish literacy programs, women health centers or parent training. Each woman has touched thousands of other lives.

Barli addresses the challenges confronted by socially and economically marginalized girls and women in Madhya Pradesh. The rural and tribal communities these young women come from are considered the most underprivileged in India. Beyond the poverty of the area, women and girls face systemic challenges to attaining health, a good education and employment. Women face high rates of sexual violence, physical exploitation, and HIV infection. The Barli Institute aims to improve this situation by offering empowerment through education. The practical skills taught all apply directly to the lives of the women attending the classes, and the attitudes inculcated in the institute lead to service-minded uses of those skills for the women’s communities. The Institute gives women confidence to rise above the challenges facing them and encourages them to chart their own destinies.

Programs

Literacy: The level of women’s literacy is raised from illiteracy to the level of being able to sit for the National Open School theory exams at the end of the six month course. All subjects at the Institute are taught holistically. For example, while learning gardening, the women learn to count the tools, trees and fruits, to weigh them and to write their names. Trainees learn 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.

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. Now, for approximately 250 days a year, 100 percent of all cooking uses solar energy. Further, trainees are encouraged to propagate the use of solar box cookers and other energy saving devices in their villages.

Gardening and Horticulture: The trainees learn how to maintain a garden, grow vegetables and fruits, and maintain soil fertility; they learn a variety of methods of irrigation, composting, raising and maintaining nurseries, and plant propagation. Additionally, they learn how to grow other crops on a larger scale for storage such as potatoes, onion and garlic, peas, beans, and spices - including turmeric and chilies.

Personality Development: The curriculum of personality development includes developing leadership skills, encouraging students to take initiative by recognizing their purpose in life as equal human beings, recognizing the important role women play in developing society, and respecting and reinforcing the value of their own culture. The Institute tries to inculcate in the students a scientific temperament and spirit of inquiry, foster ethical values like freedom from prejudices of all kinds, encourage children's education - especially in girls, and human values and virtues. Additional curriculum highlights include communication techniques, how to consult in decision making and problem solving, how to take part in group discussion, how to listen, how to speak and address an audience and how to report on findings.

Pre and Post Natal Care: In the villages where most of the trainees come from, there is little or no access to pre and post natal care. More than 90% of all deliveries take place in the home and are assisted by poorly or untrained “mid-wives” (who may even be men). The trainees the physiology of conception, symptoms of pregnancy, social practices relating to pregnancy, and how to care for pregnant women including immunization, checkups, problems expected during pregnancy, and preparing for delivery.

Mother and Child Care: Training to assist mother and child includes skills in cleanliness, massage, clothing, breast feeding, weaning, nutrition, immunization, precautions against home accidents, and management of low birth weight.
Health and Hygiene: The trainees learn personal and home hygiene and sanitation, child care and nutrition, 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.

Caring for the Environment: One significant component of the Institute's curriculum is 'Caring for the Environment' as a spiritual responsibility. This teaching is focused on environment and sustainable development; care for the environment as a service to the community; valuable sources of home and natural remedies; the value of indigenous knowledge - focused on educating about the importance of a healthy environment and caring for land, water, animals and forests. “Hands on” learning includes creating tree nurseries; planting, maintaining and protecting trees; learning about the sources of buying seeds and plants; and learning about energy conservation techniques like composting, vermi culture, water, soil, and reuse of biodegradable and other products (waste management).

Stories

The Story of Antari:

Antari was a shy girl who could not even pronounce her own name properly. She had great difficulty in school and dropped out three times before she finally enrolled at Barli Institute.

“I got all the answers here,” she says. She learned sewing and embroidery so well she soon was helping teach her fellow students. She learned to ask questions, which bolstered her confidence. When she went back to her village, she bought a sewing machine and started a tailor shop. Six months later she took the higher education exams and got high marks. This allowed her to pursue a Bachelor of Education degree at Sanskar College, Bhopal and a Masters of Philosophy in Education.

Now, Antari is a post-graduate in Hindi literature working as a teacher in Dahi Village. Her story has been reported in newspapers and is featured in a workbook developed by the Madhya Pradesh State Education Center. “I cannot believe she is the same Antari who could not talk properly,” one of her former teachers said. “She would hide behind her friends whenever we called her. Surely she is a guiding light for others.”

“I wanted to be self-dependent,” Antari says, “and make my parents proud. I think I’ve done that.”