Barli Development Institute for Rural Women in Indore has transformed the lives of over 11,000 tribal girls since 1985.
The institute has equipped them with education, vocational skills and environmental awareness.
This has led to breaking social barriers, starting businesses and inspiring their communities toward empowerment and sustainable living.
Rekha Rathore, aged 30, from Badi Kalmer near Hatod in Indore district, got engaged when she was just 12. She might have been doing non-remunerative work in the village if not for a visit in 2010 to a development institute in Indore that taught her the value of education and empowerment. Now she has a master's degree in sociology and is an assistant trainer at the same institute, trying to help her children build a bright future for themselves.
Her journey was anything but straightforward. Rathore had studied till ninth standard when she first arrived at Barli Development Institute for Rural Women (BDIRW), a Bahai-inspired non-profit, to learn tailoring. Here, she was inspired to finish her school education and go for higher studies. But first, she had to convince her husband, a farmer who studied till class X, and in-laws to let her study. She was allowed only after she, her parents and the institute authorities jointly counselled and negotiated with her husband's family.
Lalita, 26, from Undri village in Alirajpur — the district with the country's lowest literacy rate of 36.1 per cent (Census 2011) — also used a similar opportunity at the institute to turn her life around. From being a daily-wage labourer, she now owns three shops and taught her husband, his brother and sisters stitching and cutting.
Since 1985, Barli has educated and empowered over 11,000 socially and economically disadvantaged tribal girls from 10,000 villages in the interiors of Madhya Pradesh. These girls shared knowledge and opportunities with others in their community, highlighting the role of such initiatives in social change.
Barli, in Bhilali, means the central pillar of a tribal house. If it is strong, the house sustains, a philosophy the institute has embraced by looking at women as the pillars of the family's progress.
“Women empowerment and environmental conservation are the two arms of Barli,” said Tahera Jadhav, director, Barli Institute, adding “mera apna aur mere samuday ka vikas (learning to develop myself and my community) is the foundation of the curriculum taught at Barli.”
The institute conducts two free residential courses twice a year — a six month community volunteer course and a grassroots trainer course, through which the girls are motivated and encouraged, taught gender equality and inspired to search for a purpose in life.
They learn Hindi, health and hygiene, including natal care, self and community development, environmental and sustainable practices as well as income-generating vocational skills like tailoring. This has equipped the graduates to help their villages, start businesses or continue with their studies.
Caring for the environment is taught as a spiritual responsibility, as well as a service to the community. Trainees are told about the use and importance of clean energy sources like solar cooker, sold at a subsidised rate of Rs 1,000, and the technique of making briquettes by mixing farm waste and waste paper. Briquettes are used as fuel when it is not possible to cook with solar cookers.
They also learn organic farming, vermicomposting, solar drying of vegetables — a step towards food security — as well as medicinal plant cultivation, among other things.
At the institute, meals are cooked on a mass scale on solar cookers. “The trainees and their families are encouraged to use solar cookers at home as cooking is smoke-less, trees are saved from being chopped and the time of the girls who have to venture deep into the forest to collect firewood is not wasted. They can also encounter wild animals or unsocial elements there,” said Jadhav.
The curriculum is adapted to the village needs. Trainees are taught to identify various kinds of snakes, treat incidents of snake bites and electrocution common in villages. They are explained the benefits of planting nutrient rich trees like moringa (drumstick) and the importance of growing and eating green vegetables and fruits.
“Iron supplements are available in the market but the girls don’t go there to buy them. So, we encourage them to grow moringa trees, which are a good source of iron,” said Yogesh D Jadhav, chief operating officer at Barli Institute.
In these villages, women's health is a neglected subject. Sickle cell anemia is rampant in the region. The Barli trainees are made to undergo a blood test — a first for many of them — on arrival. They are counselled against marrying a person suffering from sickle cell anemia if they are suffering from it themselves. The girls are advised to go to a doctor than a traditional healer — a badwa — if they suffer from health issues.
These efforts have yielded fruit in a male-dominated society. Small changes are visible. In Alirajpur district, bordering Gujarat and Maharashtra, for instance, the age at which girls are considered for marriage has increased, said Jadhav. The women have career aspirations and their parents also don't pressure them to get married.