Yellamma and her colleagues' story is as much about how resolutely they mean business as about how much their business means to them.

Until 2002, Yellamma's life story mirrored that of many unfortunate semi-literate women living in city slums. In her mid-thirties, she was the sole earner in her family consisting of husband and four daughters, as her husband Ramesh Chand was incapacitated by severe asthma. Inspite of working long hours as a stone crusher in a nearby quarry, Yellamma was barely able to feed her family.

Grab opportunities that come your way

But thereafter, there is a twist in Yellamma's tale. Yellamma and her family lived in a slum outside the campus of National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) in Hyderabad. On a visit to the NIRD, founder of the Barefoot College and the Social Work and Research Centre Bunker Roy suggested the institute establish a Rural Energy Workshop in its Rural Technology Park to function as a production-cum-training-cum-maintenance facility for renewable energy. The workshop's first job would be the installation of a five-kilowatt solar power-generating unit to light up the Rural Technology Park.

Roy also proposed that semi-literate or illiterate women be trained to take up this job. When officials from the NIRD offered free training to the slum-dwelling women, Yellamma jumped at the opportunity. She inspired herself and three other semi-literate or illiterate women - Chinamma, Kalavathi and Zohra Begum - to travel across the country to Rajasthan, or more precisely, to the Barefoot College in Tilonia to be trained as Women Barefoot Solar Engineers (WBSEs).

It's never too late to learn a new trade

The training, which was intensive and hands-on, taught Yellamma and the others to independently fabricate charge controllers, install invertors, repair and maintain domestic solar lighting electronic circuit systems and solar lanterns. They also learnt how to establish rural electronic workshops in villages for the repair and maintenance of lighting units at the village level.

Back in Hyderabad, the NIRD urged the group to take the next step of registering themselves as the Womens' Barefoot Solar Engineers' Association of Andhra Pradesh (WBSEAAP). Again, Yellamma led her colleagues from the front.

Once registered as a formal association, the foursome took up their first assignment - the installation of a five-kilowatt solar power plant comprising solar panels and battery bank to electrify 15 buildings and 20 streetlights situated in the Rural Technology Park. Amazed at the expertise displayed by the group, the NIRD extended the solar electrification assignment to include other parts of its campus, and also gave them the job of maintaining the institute's solar power house.

Method brings rewards

Having setup a formal association, the Women Barefoot Solar Engineers function methodically with Yellamma as the current president of the WBSEAAP. The WBSEAAP meet once a month when its members discuss issues relating to their work, that is, solar electrification as well as administrative matters. Accurate documentation is also emphasized - the minutes of their meetings, their budgets and basic financial statements are carefully recorded.

Impressed with group's track record, and their mature and professional approach to their work, the state government's Ministry of Tribal Welfare and Development entrusted Yellamma and her colleagues with the responsibility of solar electrifying five remote villages and training 10 WBSE's in Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh. So far, the group has solar electrified 100 households in two villages and trained 4 semi-literate women as village level WBSEs. The job is an arduous task - these inaccessible villages are situated on the border of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, an area dominated by the revolutionary People's War Group (PWG) where most outsiders fear to tread. Yet the group ventured forth and gamely took up the immense challenge of mobilizing the community towards its development.

When the going gets tough, the tough apply their skills to make it good!

A challenge it was - it wasn't as though they had received a contract which they could simply execute and pocket the proceeds. No - the government paid the up-front cost of the domestic solar lighting systems but Yellamma and her colleagues had to work at the grassroots level to mobilize entire rural communities, the poorest of the poor in villages to make a monthly contribution as end-users of the systems. This entailed the formation of Village Energy Environment Committees (VEECs) whose members (also end-users) would look after the day-to-day administration in seven villages. In a sense, the Women Barefoot Solar Engineers depend entirely on the community for their source of livelihood. Of the per user contribution of rupees 40 per unit per month, rupees 25/30 goes to the Women Barefoot Solar Engineers and the remaining amount is kept to meet the cost of spares maintained in rural electronic workshops for the next decade.

The challenges are not restricted to the hard terrain. All along, Yellamma and her colleagues have had to contend with the challenge of changing the mindset of a predominantly male-dominated rural society.

Women who have raised the bar

In fact, contact with women who are perhaps even more underprivileged than she had ever been, spurred Yellamma to simultaneously also mobilize the women on gender-specific issues. She used her own example to show how personal initiative and self-belief can't stand in the way of even semi-literate and illiterate women making a better life for themselves and their families. Yellamma's keen sense of collectivity has resulted in the association being as involved with energy as it is with the issues of health, education, and employment.

Today, the women may not earn much more than they did before taking up this trade, but the respect they earn for what they do has transformed the way they see themselves. Their handling of sophisti-cated solar technology and their association exemplifies the fact that literacy should never stand in the way of entrepreneurship, and that (solar) power rests well in a woman's hands! 

Charu Bahri is an author, freelance writer, columnist and [part-time] manager - projects and information systems at J Watumull Global Hospital and Research Centre. More about her @ http:/charubahri. googlepages.com

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