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.