30 October 2009
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In pictures: The future's bright. Can't see the gallery? View it on Flickr. All images © Abbie Tralyer-Smith/Panos/DFID
Tinginaput is an ordinary village in remote rural India: two rows of neat mud houses, a couple of water pumps, a mango tree where people gather to talk. But there is something very modern perched on the tiles of each roof: a solar panel the size of a couple of A4 books.
From these, wires lead into the houses, bringing light and power. Five tall street lamps have their own solar system as well – giving light through the night. That, say the villagers, is the best thing of all about the arrival of green power: they no longer fear attacks from bhalu - bears - from the surrounding hills after dark.
Three years ago four women from this little hamlet made an extraordinary journey. Not only were they leaving their remote highland homes for the first time in their lives, they were also travelling into modernity, way beyond the strict boundaries that govern a woman’s life among the tribes of India’s Eastern Ghats.
“Before 2005, I’d never even seen an outsider,” says grandmother Pulka Wadeka. She does not know her age because, like most women in the hills of the state of Orissa, she cannot read or write. But she can wire up and run a solar-powered 12-volt electricity system. Which – as we tell her – is more than we know how to do.
Frightening journey
Pulka and her friends’ journey to the southern city of Hyderabad for five months training in solar power technology came after patient work from the Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihoods Programme (OTELP), a programme funded by DFID and run with the state government of Orissa.
First, programme staff had to convince Pulka and the others to travel to the big city, where no one could speak their language. “It was difficult,” says OTELP programme director Deepak Mohanty. “At the beginning the ladies were so embarrassed they would not even sit in our presence.”
“It was strange, and frightening,” remembers Pulka. “The train to the city was very scary. We missed home. But as head of the village self-help group I had to go, for my community. My husband said it was OK, but warned me not to talk to anyone.”
Now she can laugh at the memory. Training was hard – they even had to learn the English alphabet and numbers to work out the circuit diagrams. But now Pulka wields pliers and multimeter like a practised electrician.
Perhaps only if you’ve lived without electricity can you appreciate how Tinginaput has been transformed in the last few years. The solar panels have made a difference to many aspects of life here – not all of them obvious.
First, villagers save on kerosene – an expensive item and one that carries a fire risk – for their oil lamps.
Also, the bright, portable lights they now use allow handicraft work, such as making brooms, to be done at all hours, not just during daylight. Children can do school work into the evenings. And, crucially for families constantly on the edge of hunger, there is more time for working the fields. Incomes are increasing.
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