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Bunker Roy: Learning from the Barefoot Movement
Speaker: Sanjit “Bunker” Roy
TED.com
Barefoot engineers and architects, primary school educated solar experts, a grandmother dentist who is illiterate, puppets as teachers – these are just some of the perspective shifting characteristics of “Barefoot College”. The women of the village have gone on to train other women in Africa and Afghanistan on solar engineering, using only body language to communicate. The result: the first solar powered village in Sierra Leone and Ghana.
For me, Barefoot College is living proof of the following concept that Roy speaks to at the end of the talk: What is possible when you look inside for solutions and listen to the people you are trying to “serve”. The college is a perfect example of proof of what is possible when you listen instead of thinking that you possess the answer to a problem you are trying to solve to “serve” others.