Graduation Ceremony at Govindpur
Arriving at Govindpur Extension
Centre on the morning of 19th September 2009 they were warmly
welcomed by the trainees and the staff of the Extension centers
and taken inside the training centre and shown around and were
heartening to see the training centre and the spirit and
enthusiasm of all the trainees and the staff who were busy
preparing for the graduation ceremony of three batches of more
than 50 trainees who had just completed their training programme
conducted in 3 different villages in Kanker district. It was
also observed that they used village common centre (venue ) and
had most of the furniture and tents from village level local neighbouring institutions rather than renting for the function.
This increases the level of community participation and sense of
ownership.
Mr. Avinash Champawat IAS, Collector of their
district Kanker was the chief Guest of the graduation ceremony (His wife
Mrs. Neha Champawat is IPS officer posted as Superintendent
Police in Dhamtari, the neighboring district of Kanker.)
Just as he arrived he got
very interested to know more about the parabolic solar cooker
that was displayed at the venue and
spent quite sometime with Jimmy McGilligan, the manager of the
Institute who told the collector that Barli Institute, among all
main components of its programmes, is also committed to
promotion of solar energy in communities of its trainees. He was
then shown around the training centre by the trainers and he
interacted with the trainees. Soon the graduation ceremony
started and many of the graduates shared very interesting
stories of changes that the training has brought in them .The
collector presented the certificates to all the graduates and in
his address he encouraged the trainees to
be fearless and that he was extremely happy to be there to see
the progress that they have all made as a
result of grassroots based community development programme
through these women who are also sharing their learning with
their communities .

He also commended the role of Barli NGO as the
Government cannot do all the
development. He also assured all the women of all his help and
he will be happy to collaborate with Barli Institute in any of
its activities in future.
Ms Lata Yadav the training in welcomed all the
guests and gave an introduction of the extension centers and
explained the word Barli with its literal meaning of the Bhilali
word as Central Pillar that holds the house and the Institute
considers women as the Barli of a family and the
society.
The director of the Institute congratulated all
the graduates for successful completion of their course and
wished each one of them to return to their villages to become
Barlis share all the knowledge, skills and experience in
a way that they may establish love, unity and peace along with
prosperity and specially educate the children and make sure to
have violence free society as a result there will be no
conflict, no naxalism. She also encouraged them to go to the
authorities and utilize all the government schemes.
The manager
of the Institute also expressed his happiness over the progress
made by these centers and he wished to live to see them growing
from strength to strength. Mrs. Manna Sharma shared her
experience of how she went to Indore from Tripura and undertook
training and now moved to serve the women in this area.
Some of the outgoing trainees like Ramtu Mandawi,
Padmani Gajbala shared their experiences of learning about
health, importance of being good human being, children’s
education, and HIV AIDS and they were also happy that they have
learnt cutting and Tailoring. Another local trainer Ms Maheshwari also expressed her sense of achievement of becoming a
trainer after taking training at one of the extension centers
earlier.
Vote of thanks was given by another trainee
turned trainer Ishwari Devi.
