'Barefoot' Grandmothers Electrify Rural Communities (Video & Article From CNN International)

[Turborama]

I'm curious, anything like this broadcast on CNN USA?

January 27, 2011 -- Updated 0300 GMT (1100 HKT) | Filed under: Innovation

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Barefoot College in India trains women to be solar engineers
* Women from across the globe train for six months to then educate their home villages
* Women chosen to be trained as men seen to be "restless", says college founder

(Click on the image below for the video report)

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/international/2011/01/26/ef.grandmothers.lights.bk.b.cnn">

(CNN) -- Turning grandmothers into solar engineers is one of Sanjit "Bunker" Roy's favorite jobs.

Roy is the social entrepreneur and founder of the http://www.barefootcollege.org/">Barefoot College and has been championing a bottom-up approach to education and empowering rural poor since 1972.

It is now a global enterprise with roots in India. Roy recruits women from around the world to install and maintain solar lighting and power in their home villages.

"If you ask any solar engineer in the world, 'Can anyone make this in a village?' they say it's technically impossible. And if I say a grandmother is making it who is illiterate, he can't believe it, it's beyond his comprehension," says Roy.

The United Nations estimates that around 1.5 billion people still live without electricity, and often the best and most immediate way to bring non-polluting electricity to remote regions is with solar energy.

Roy certainly believes so.

Continues: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/01/24/barefoot.college.india/index.html?hpt=C1

Part of complete coverage on: http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/earths.frontiers/">Earth's Frontiers