Barefoot College International is a women-centric not-for-profit that has been catalyzing solutions to the challenges facing rural poor communities with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable. Our mission echoes the lifestyle and work style of Mahatma Gandhi. It is today guided by our CEO, Rodrigo Paris who together with a diverse and dynamic team of grassroots social innovators from a wide range of backgrounds, including many non-formally educated members, takes this exceptional organization into the future. In the 93 countries we have worked in, we are dedicated to crafting dynamic partnerships that lead to impact for communities. The ‘Barefoot Solutions’ can be broadly categorized into Solar Electrification, Clean Water, Education, Enriche and Women’s Wellness and Livelihood Development. Foremost, Barefoot College International is committed to Empowering Women as change agents, entrepreneurs and environmental stewards.

Barefoot College Latin America provides education and opportunity for rural communities across 21 countries in Central and South America. We celebrate and value indigenous wisdom and skills, and believe that access to energy enables all forms of development. We are committed to catalyzing the transformation of poor rural communities to sustain and manage their own initiatives into the future.

We do this through residential solar engineering training, built for illiterate and semi-literate women without formal education, through livelihood skills training in locally relevant industries, and through a supplementary Enriche curriculum for all trainees built on 8 pillars: Digital Literacy, Women’s Health, Microenterprise, Financial Inclusion, Self Awareness, Entrepreneurship, Legal Rights, and Environmental Stewardship.

These initiatives operate at the nexus of Women, Energy, and Environment. Because women suffer the effects of climate change disproportionately, and have the least access to education, healthcare, and work, they are the ideal leaders for transformative rural development, and have the most to gain. Putting complex technologies in the hands of rural women, we shift gender and leadership paradigms, walking with communities toward a brighter, electrified future.