Aeta grandmas to train as solar engineers

MANILA, Philippines -  Seven grandmothers from Aeta communities in the provinces of Tarlac, Zambales and Abra, who all can neither read nor write, have been selected to attend a training program in a college in India and become ‘solar engineers’.

Their mission: to light up their village.

The women uniformly come from villages that have never accessed electricity. Their families use what they call “uyong” – a bundle of twigs from trees, dried and burnt like torches, to serve as makeshift stoves.

They comprise the first batch from the Philippines and are headed for an alternative school called The Barefoot College in India.

“What the poor thought important is reflected in the college,” said Sanjit “Bunker” Roy, founder of Barefoot College and listed among the 100 most influential persons by TIME Magazine in 2010.

“The only requirements to be qualified for the program are that these women have to be lolas (grandmothers) and they should be unable to read or write,” said Patricia Bunye, president of Women in Resource Development Inc. (Diwata), one of the non-government organizations involved in the program. “The trainees were chosen not so much for acceptability but for sustainability,” she added.

Roy personally chose the Aeta grandmothers after he visited the communities in May 2014. Barefoot College accepts and trains only women.

Why so?  He explained, “Men are ambitious and tend to demand certification by the end of the course so they can leave their community, go to the city, and find better opportunities,” which defeats the purpose of the program.

Selected participants will undergo training to become solar engineers for six months in India in a mission to solar electrify their villages when they come back to their respective homes, and maintain and repair the solar-powered equipment for the subsequent years.

Locally dubbed as “Tanging Tanglaw: Turning IP Grandmothers into Solar Engineers”, the Barefoot College Program in the Philippines is organized by the Embassy of India, Diwata, Land Rover Club of the Philippines, and the Philippine Mine Safety and Environment Association, and the World Wildlife Fund-Philippines. The program has been successfully conducted in South Africa and other parts of the world.

Being away from home and adapting in a new environment is just half the test. Barefoot College participants come from the poorest communities in different countries, including Afghanistan, Africa and Sierra Leone, and they can only communicate through body language.

Cita Diaz, 40, the youngest of the Aeta grandmothers, has never been away from her family for more than a day, let alone set foot on foreign soil. Another participant, Magda Salvador, admits that she will probably miss her loved ones, but believes she can adjust. She is more excited than worried for the new experience coming her way.

“I know that all things worth doing come with sacrifice,” she said.