The Barli Development Institute for Rural and Tribal Women was set up in 1985, originally to empower disadvantaged women living in small, rural communities around Indore . The Institute has now grown and is also training women from all over India . Barli runs two types of programme: year long training for Area Coordinators and a six month training for Community Volunteers. Each year, around 160 women are trained as Community Volunteers and 15 or so women as Area Coordinators. Their training is largely similar: Literacy; Vocational Skills such as batik work, tailoring and agriculture; Health; and Personality Development, which includes confidence building and rights awareness training. The main difference is that the Area Coordinators are learning to be trainers for their villages and communities, so take additional courses such as typing and teacher-training. The Area Coordinators also do much of the teaching throughout the year, supervised by the Institute’s trainer.

Barli’s Health Curriculum, for example, is extensive and extremely effective. It creates in these women an awareness of essential subjects that include clean water and sanitation; pre and post-natal care; diseases such as leprosy and HIV; childhood immunisations; and how to make home remedies for common ailments.

For more information please visit their new website: www.barli.org