Communications

The Communications section is one of the most well-known in Barefoot College.

Tilonia’s skilled puppeteers regularly mount street performances on themes such as water conservation, the importance of the environment and education (especially for girls), land ownership, women’s issues and caste taboos.

The Communications team also runs a popular community radio station while its audio-visual department trains young people in how to use still and video cameras and makes regular visual records of Barefoot College’s work.

Barefoot College is well-placed to promote Rajasthan’s rich cultural heritage at the same time as keeping up with the changing times.

Performances for social change

In 1981 a meeting in Tilonia between Ramlal, a Barefoot string puppeteer, and Shankar Singh, a gifted young communicator and adult educator, was serendipitous. The two connected instantly, and soon gathered like-minded young people around them. Collaborating with traditional musicians and performers, the resulting group created a rich world of puppets, theatre, sketches and songs, all vibrant starting points for conversation with all manner of people.

That was the starting point for one of the most innovative and dynamic aspects of Barefoot College’s work. From that came a new model for interactive communication that spread the idea of equality, justice and participatory development far and wide.

Over the years, the puppet design has evolved from traditional string puppets, through glove puppets that required no special skill, to the rod puppets in use today. Today, Jokhim Chacha, the bard of Tilonia, is Barefoot College’s mascot and commentator, a wide and widely travelled old man whose extreme age (365!) gives him leave to speak his mind and engage in frank discussions with anyone. When he has something critical to say, he does it with humour.

Over time a rich repertoire of plays, skits, and songs has addressed a range of issues, like the importance of water, conservation, educating girl-children, land and ownership, the environment, women’s issues and caste taboos. Through theatre the performers speak to rural India – about sending children to night schools, the need to collect rainwater, and the rights of women to be paid the minimum wage. But they also speak to dignitaries as equals, and they have participated in folk festivals in Norway and in England.

Connecting through modern technology

Barefoot Community Radio

In 2009, Barefoot College set up its own community radio station. The radio jockeys working there are young people from surrounding villages who use the radio to entertain listeners with folk songs as well as to relay news, celebrate national events and disseminate important information about government schemes on education, health, livelihoods, agriculture, and so on. These jockeys speak in the local language, and its young village reporters forge instant links between the radio and the people.

Audio-visual section

The Barefoot College has brought in new technologies and trained many young people in how to use still and film cameras. Its coordinator is a Barefoot Cameraman who has not only filmed hundreds of events but who is remarkably efficient in storing our stocks of completed film. He has made the audio-visual section into an archive – a repository of information about Barefoot College’s history. The photographs and footage recorded by this unit have been used in many important films and books. Particularly noteworthy is the publication “Barefoot Photographers of Tilonia”.

Barefoot College Impact

Barefoot Communicators

Over 40 years, more than 2,000 Barefoot Communicators have been trained to produce interactive puppet shows that communicate with rural communities about many development-related issues. They combine puppetry with street theatre and songs as powerful development communication tools. Since 1981, over 300,000 people in 3,000 Indian villages have watched these performances. They have contributed to changes in attitude, mindset and behaviour in rural communities.

Community radio

The community radio reaches out to 60,000 people within 15kms of Barefoot College’s Tilonia campus. It acts as a powerful medium for communicating important information about issues affecting local people.