* Community Volunteers.
80 to 85% of the young village women taking training at the Institute have not had any opportunity of going to a school, they are mostly illiterate. they are at the Institute for 6 months, they become literate, learn many other skills.
They are taught in that what you learned, you share with others in the villages and help in the development of your village.
On returning they now get involved with self help groups, some get work as village health workers etc. setup their own business, like cutting and tailoring shops, many of these being the first women tailor in the village. A number of them go to school, and sit in the classes with the small children and get their school certificates.
* Grassroots Trainers.
Young village women who are school dropouts with a suitable level of education are trained as grassroots trainers, their training is for 12 months.
During the first 6 months, they take the same training as the Community Volunteers, also they are taught how to teach the curriculum. during the second 6 months they increase their skill as trainers and also learn Hindi and English typing and basic computer skills. They return to their village suitably trained to take up jobs with NGOs and in Local Govt. Offices etc.

Barli Development Institute for Rural Women                        

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Training in Literacy
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The development/empowerment of illiterate and semi literate rural and village women is not possible without first training them in basic communication skills (reading, writing and speaking/listening).

Though literacy is incorporated in all subjects,  formal literacy  classes take place each day  between 11:00am and 12:00 noon and 5:00pm and 6:00pm. The level of their literacy is raised from illiteracy to the level of being able to sit a National Institute of Open Schooling theory exam at the end of the six month training programme, this exam is related to other skills they are learning.
The Institute provides each trainee with basic literacy in Hindi to enable her to understand herself and the world in which she lives.

All subjects at the Institute are taught holistically, i.e. interwoven with literacy. For example, in learning gardening the women learn to count the tools, trees, count and weigh the vegetables and fruits they produce, know and to write their different names and keep records. In health instruction, they learn to write the names of different diseases, preventive measures, to take body weight and height. They learn to understand and record time for immunizations and for pre- and post-natal care. In the tailoring class the newly learned Hindi is immediately put to use in measuring cloth and the size of person for whom the garment is being made, making graphs and patterns, cutting and stitching according to their own measurements

Trainees learn through practical experience to write a receipt, calculate stock, estimate costs, count cash and give change. They also learn to approach a bank or a local government official for the purpose of applying for loans.

To prevent them from falling back into illiteracy after they return to the village, they are encouraged to write postcards and letters to the Institute. All the news, views and stories of the graduates, plus some educational messages, are published in a monthly newsletter, "Barli Ki Duniya" (World of Barli), which is sent free of cost to all the graduates from the Institute

This curriculum used in teaching literacy has been developed by the Institute with over a period  23 years experience of teaching young rural and tribal village women who had not had the opportunity of any schooling or dropped out of school at an early stage. This curriculum has been published as Aao Padhna Likhna Seekhien aur Seekhayein in Hindi, was released to the public on 15th May 2009 more information at http://www.barli.org/Published/literacy.html. It is written in very simple language so the text can be easily understood by new literates. Though all training is free of cost, all books that the trainees use during training are purchased by them at 20% of actual cost, for most of them these are the first books they have owned.

Literacy in the class is taught by a peer teaching method, 80 to 85 percent of the young women taking training at the Institute come as illiterates, 15 to 20 percent are school dropouts, some of whom have attended school up to class 10. these school dropouts are know as *Grassroots Trainers, for 2 hours at the end of each afternoon they sit with the teachers/trainers and go through and discuss the lesson to be taught the following day. During class next day  these grassroots trainers sit with their illiterate sisters who are known as *Community Volunteers in small groups, One trainer to 5 or 6 community volunteers who are from as near as possible the same village or region, so that the trainer then knows the local dialect and customs of the others.

After the six month training these young village women sit a examination set by National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), at autonomous Institute under the Ministry of Human resource development Government of India. They examined on theory, practical and maintenance of a work book for the vocational skill they are learning, in a recent exam pass rate was 100 percent see: http://www.barli.org/News-Archive/May-2009-Cutting-Tailoring.html 
The most promising trainees are encouraged to continue their education through the National Open School system.