By Cassandra piccolo | Global Head of Communications
Starting in January 2025, Barefoot College International welcomed 12 women to our training centre in Batzul, Guatemala.The Solar Engineering program offers Indinegous women the opportunity to provide their communities with renewable energy, while offering the women a livable wage for their installation and maintenance services. This is the land of the Ixil Maya Indiigenous peoples, and we advocate for their rights, livelihoods and overall prosperity following centuries of hardship brought by the colonialists. These rights can be directly achieved through awareness workshops, under our Life Skills and ENRICH curriculum and indirectly through vocational educational programs.
Following their training, the women will return to their respective communities, which were co-selected by BCI and local ground partners due to their remoteness and need for/lack of electricity. The women will be responsible for installing and maintaining an average of 50 solar systems each. Each system installed, for a negligibly small cost to the beneficiaries and provides light to a family consisting of around 8 villagers. This project will therefore provide light to at least 4,000 beneficiaries, including the homes of the trained solar engineers.
To further propagate the empowerment of the Indigenous trainees, some are offered positions as solar master trainers once they've graduated. Carolina, for example, was part of our first Guatemalan cohort in 2022. She is now a trainer herself, offering local wisdom and insight to the concurrent trainees. The familiarity and cultural similarities make women local to the area the most suitable trainers for the trainees.
Our Life Skills and ENRICH programs are integral components of our curriculum, introducing topics including Women's Rights, Nutrition, Sanitation, Sexual Health, Digital Literacy, Sustainable Living and Land Stewardship and Financial Literacy. These pillars of valuable self-agency propagation foster confidence in the women trainees. We believe that this is a necessary foundation for them to succeed long-term. It also encourages a ripple effect where the trainees all become trainers to women in their respective communities.
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