Barli Development Institute for Rural Women
Celebrates UNESCO's International Literacy Day 2009 by Holding a 3 Day Workshop on the Theme, "Literacy for Empowerment of Rural and Tribal Women" for the Trainees of the Institute

On 3 Important UN Days, "International Women's Day", "World Environment Day" and "International Literacy Day" Barli Development Institute for Rural Women holds a 3 day workshop for it's trainees, the theme of the workshop is normally the theme designated by the UN agency or theme more understood easily by the rural women, the workshop normally concludes on the specified UN Day.

International Literacy Day was observed on 8^th September 2009 by concluding a three days training workshop on “Literacy for Empowerment of Rural and Tribal Women" started on 6^th  September for 75 young Tribal women from 28 villages of Dhar, Alirajpur, Khargone, Badhwani, Dewas and Harda districts of Madhya Pradesh and from Bihar, Orissa and Chattisgarh.
Chief Guest of the programme  was  Sh .R. N. Berwa, IAS ( Retd ) Director General  Dr. Baba Sahib Ambedkar National  Institute of Social Sciences, Dr. Ambedkar Nagar, Mhow. and Dr Sanjay Shrivastava  from UNICEF  Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal presided over the  programme.
Mr. Berwa commended the dedicated work of Barli Institute for its focus on the most unreached and marginalized section of society Expressing his concern that Madhya Pradesh is still suffering from high rate of female illiteracy and malnutrition. Barli Institute shows the way to  improve the level of literacy and health is by educating the young girls, the future mother. Dr Sanjay Shrivastava  said he could not believe the level of purity, participation, and understanding of the participants and the self confidence reflected by them through their experiences shared and folk songs on development speaks about the commitment and efforts of the Barli Institute .

 Dr Mrs. Janak Palta   McGilligan, the Director of the Barli Institute,welcomed the guests, gave a  brief introduction of the Institute and of the International Literacy Day. She stated that Literacy is not only the tool for empowerment of rural and tribal women, it is key to the transformation of the individual and society. The main objective of the workshop is  to empower  the participant  so that they will go back to their communities and promote literacy activities for the recovery of human rights, for developing cultural identity, for improving the quality of life and for establishing foundations for social, spiritual and economic development.

The workshop was inaugurated  by Pro. Prateek Shrivastav, Economist and senior journalist and presided over by Mrs Smita  Rathore principal, Indus World School. Prateek Shrivastav stated that man and woman are two wings of the bird of humanity and it can only progress if both the wings are equally strong and healthy. Literacy is the fundamental human need, the female wing of rural India is far too much weaker as it has been deprived of education. Barli Institute is rendering greatest service to the Nation by strengthening this wing by training and educating them. Ms Rathore said she is overwhelmed to hear the experiences of the tribal girls ,the participants of the workshop, the way they came up to the microphone and shared their experiences of learning about the gender and development related issues of literacy and women.

Mrs. Rama Berwa, a special guest also encouraged all the women to get maximum education. Manager of the Institute, Mr Jimmy McGilligan and Mr. Niranjan Rathore a Chemical Engineer were also present. The workshop was facilitated by Ms Priti Nigam Project Officer LEPRA, Ms Anoopa, consultant  on gender issues and Mr. and Mrs. Parveen Gokhle the Secretary of NGO Pahal and the Institute team  including Amrita Pathak, Taru Ningwal, Dhedi Baghdare. Ms Anjum Sood, Deputy Director of Barli Institute gave detailed information about the literacy programme of the Institute its methodology and content.
Dr Geeta Handa, the member of Board of Directors of Barli Institute gave the vote of Thanks Ms Dhedi Baghdare conducted the programme.