Accra, June 1, GNA - Five illiterate grandmothers, between the ages of 45 and 50 from the Upper East Region, have been granted scholarship to be trained as solar electrical engineers in India. According to the programme, they would return to Ghana to set up workshops to facilitate solar energy in deprived and remote rural communities in the region and expose their counterparts to their expertise.

The programme was jointly organised by the United Nations Development Programme, Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme in Ghana and the Barefoot College of India. The Barefoot College approach was successfully practiced in 16 countries including Ethiopia, Benin, Mali, and Cameroon, where more than 100 grandmothers were exposed to the training.

Mr. Roy Bunker, Founder of the College who made this known in Accra on Monday said the programme would be ran in sign language and observation with the use of the hand, during the six months duration of the course.

He said the training would give professional competence and knowledge in fabrication, installation, repairs and maintenance of solar lighting systems.

"The emphasis is on practical work, requiring skills with the use of the hands with no theoretical knowledge in physics, electronic and mathematics, or how or why power is generated from the sun," he said. Mr Bunker said the women would leave Ghana in September this year and return competent and confident to solar electrify their own villages without outside help.

"They will go to India like grandmothers but they will come back as confident as tigresses."

Mr Bunker said the programme was started 38 years ago, to demystify and decentralize technology and put it into the hands of the ordinary people.

He said the Indian government under the Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation would foot the travelling cost and cover the cost of the six months training.

Mr. Bunker said a cluster of 120 houses in each community would be solar electrified, after the beneficiary families had agreed to pay monthly bills to meet the maintenance, repair and replacement cost. He said under the project, a Community Energy Development Committee, would be formed in each community, to manage the solar facilities, collect monthly tariffs, pay monthly allowance to the engineers and manage a Community Solar Energy Development Fund. He said women, especially grandmothers were put at the centre of the programme because they "are patient, tactful and not curious as men who will demand certificates and seek greener pastures somewhere after the programme".

No certificates, he said would be awarded at the end of the programme. 01 June 09