The Madhya Pradesh district in India is marked by one of the highest rates of infant mortality. Illiteracy, lacking hygiene and medical care as well as poverty contribute to the circumstance that the region is regarded as one of economically least developed ones of India. Especially affected thereby: the rural female population - the Bhil and Bhilala. One quarter of all female newborns do not survive their fifteenth birthday. Women have a low status in their families; they often don’t visit schools and usually don’t get paid for their work. 

Help to self-help

The “Barli Development Institute for Rural Women” was established in 1985 in Indore. The objective was to lastingly reduce the poverty in this region. The Barli development institute in this context acts on the maxim of “help to self-help”. One is concerned with the needs of the people in question. In a six-month stay free of charge, the girls and women learn reading and writing, hygiene and health precautions, agricultural cultivation as well as a craft. Barli attaches importance particularly to the fact that the craft finds buyers on the local market. Batik and tailoring are sources generating income. The supply for whole families is guaranteed.  

More than 1600 participants already

Every year the Barli Institute trains approximately 120 girls and women. More than 1600 inhabitants from over 300 village communities in the Madhyar Pradesh district have participated in the six month long education. 

Data & Facts

Barli Development Institute for Rural Women

Location: 
Indore/Madhya Pradesh, India

Goal: Abating poverty in one of the poorest regions of India by conveying the ability to read and to write, agricultural and health precaution courses, learning a craft in a six month long educational course. 

“I was 16 years old when I took part in the training program in Barli. Since we were very poor, I had to work for our living and could not go to school. In Barli, among other things, I then learned a craft – tailoring. Now I teach tailoring in the Barli Institute myself”. - Leela