THE TRIP TO TILONIA - BAREFOOTCOLLEGE

AN ICECOLD NIGHTRIDE ON BUS
from Jaisalmer at 4.30 pm and arrival to Kisangarh at 6 am.The road was bumpy in a very bumpy bus and with natural AC. The night was one of theese nights with temperature + - 0. And we were not very well prepared for such a cold.
We were two women and two girls from Bhilon Ki Basti, two socialworkers and four swedish women.Ten persons eager to experience the Tilonia Barefootcollege!
We wanted to see the interesting work which is done. AND we wanted to discuss with them about possibilities for exchange of knowledge. We feel that we need help to create a structure and to start a democracy-process to empower the women and girls in Bhil Basti, as our fieldwork often become very caotic.

Waiting in a nightly the- hut for a taxi to take us the last 10 kilometers to Tilonia, where beds were prepared. In the hut was a coal-fire to warm our hands.

Breakfast, The dogs are waiting for something to eat.

Here is Sita, Jatani and Yasouda

First visit: the handicraft departement.We understand that the women who works with any work for Tilonia get payed with minimum 100 Rupies a day the year around. Tilonia has a marketing departement for handicraft. The Barefoot college works preferably with illiterate women from remote villages. It´s possible to stay here for 6 months and learn any of the subjects which are available.

Here women are producing solar-energy cookers. Imagine, not to be forced to collect wood for fire every day! So much more time for making other things, for instance embroidery!

This woman was illiterate when she came to Tilonia, now she is working with control of proves of

 waterstandard in the Tilonia region.

Here is the electronic Workshop. 8 Women from Kenya  are learning how they can electrify their villages by using solar energy.One woman from Jordania will go back to her country next day and start the work in her own village in Jordanian desert. See the picture below, she is the woman to the right.

Here are two "barefootdentists" and under is their equipment.

In the puppetworkshop they learn how to make Puppets and how to play with them to tell important stories to friends and people who need to get some knowledge. About girl childrens rights to live for instance.

The production of big bedcover was very interesting for Radiya and Sita in our group.And it also gave me a new idea about how to make this kind of big product and keep every woman´s individual creativity alive.

More textile handicraft. All theese small birds that we can see all over...This interested Yasouda ad Jatani.

Such a waterpump Sita had never seen before...

We were shown around and we were very impressed and delighted to be here in this sucessfully developed model for a future education of many illiterate, poor women and men ..
BUT we also had the hope to  meet with anybody responsible that could give us a response on our demand for some help from Tilonia in our work in the village Bhilon Ki Basti. The man who was the initiator and started the college in 1972, Bunker Roy, was said to be in Jaipur and nobody else seemed to be there for us to discuss with. And I was very disappointed. I thought that I had been very clear in my introduction to the leaders of Tilonia about this second goal with our visit.
So I expressed my disappointment to the very gentle and nice Guru Ji which we got to meet. I think he understood my frustration . Next morning he met me after breakfast, his face was happy: " Bunker Roy is waiting for you!"

All of a sudden we were all in the office of Bunker Roy: Britta, Kulwinder, Joanna and I. Frida, our filmmaker was unfortunately not around when this happened.
We had a very open and inspiring talk with Bunker. He gave many good advices and much support for how our work should continue.

• The women need to know that they have at least a minimum salary each week the year around.
• How many women? 38. how much will this cost??? Britta is very quick with the calculator, she found out something 5000000 I don´t know how many ceros, but we understood that this was a thinking to start with. And then to find out how to create this amount of money....
• Kulwinder got the question: "Do you want to work full time with this project", and she shined with all her face and said YES
• And the leader of the handicraftdepartement got the mission to visit Bhilon Ki Basti and explore if the village could be a counterpart to Tilonia.

                                          
Here is Kulvinder, full of entusiasm for a fulltimework with the women and girls in Bhilon Ki Basti.
Behind you can see Jatani and Yashouda.
All of us tumbled out from that meeting with our hearts full of hope for a new step in our work with women and girls in Bhilon Ki Basti.

                  And before we departed we met GURU JI who was very happy . and so were we.

                     Now we will take the advices seriousley and take a new step forward.

On demand of our village friends we made a visit to Pushkar. They wanted to see a temple in this holy town.

                                        Here is the whole gang in Pushkar, exept for Frida.

Frida and Sita are considdering about the whole trip.