Barefoot College: Philosophy and Governance
Followed by two theoretical chapters, Chapter 3 analyses the governance structures of Barefoot College. The main focus here is on the historical and evolutionary processes that the College has undergone in order to shape its existence. It is argued that b
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Barefoot College: Philosophy and Governance
We have so far discussed how social exclusion deprives individuals and communities from basic living. In addition, we have also learned that community participation and embeddedness could be instrumental for social entrepreneurship to empower and enhance the capabilities and skills of communities. However, community participation does not occur in isolation; it requires institutional encouragement and pursuit. Accordingly, we have described how social entrepreneurship as an institutional approach is capable of bridging the gap between communities to achieve inclusion. The book now moves on to understand the influence of a social enterprise on communities. How community participation has become a tool for an initiative to emerge as a social enterprise and how the social enterprise has become an instrument to empower citizens using various innovative mechanisms. We turn to a rural social enterprise called Barefoot College in India to understand the mechanisms which are instrumental in bridging the connection between exclusion and inclusion. The chapter aims to understand the governing structures created for the purpose of addressing multilevel social problems under the broad Barefoot approach. It also focuses on demonstrating the philosophy and governance of Barefoot College and understanding how innovations are instrumental in carrying out a variety of initiatives.
© The Author(s) 2017 R.K.R. Kummitha, Social Entrepreneurship and Social Inclusion, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1615-8_3
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R.K.R. KUMMITHA
Barefoot College Barefoot College was formally registered as Social Work and Research Centre (SWRC) in February 1971 in Tilonia. The College’s main campus is located in Tilonia, a village in the Rajasthan state in India. The College is spread across the state with the help of various decentralised centres which are responsible for overseeing developmental activities in various places. Barefoot was named as a College due to its efforts to integrate communities through both formal and informal education. Such education is expected to build necessary knowledge and skills among the masses to construct inclusive societies. Initially, the College was established by educationalists from different parts of India in order to deploy the philosophy of social work in rural India, which, by and large, was in the tight grip of urban social workers. Initially, the main purpose of the College was to listen and learn from each other, where farmers in the villages and social workers from urban areas come together in order to develop rural areas. During the 1970s in particular, the College focused on professionals and farmers, between whom there was an expected exchange of ideas and experience, which was to be used to benefit communities. It was clear in the beginning that the existence of Barefoot College was to address multiple problems faced by villages and rescues them from the clutches of exclusion. Hence, in the first few years, it was a joint venture between literates from socia
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