Bunker Roy Quotes & Sayings

Wherever I've been, and I've been to over 20, maybe 25, countries in Africa, I've noticed how their backbone is broken. They don't have any confidence in themselves. They always think a white man will solve their problems from outside for them. — Bunker Roy

What's the best way of communicating in the world today? Television? No. Telegraph? No. Telephone? No. Tell a woman. — Bunker Roy

In 1965, I went to what was called the worst Bihar famine in India, and I saw starvation, death, people dying of hunger, for the first time. It changed my life. I came back home, told my mother, 'I'd like to live and work in a village.' Mother went into a coma. — Bunker Roy

School is something that you learn - reading and writing. Education is what you learn from the family, from the environment, from the community. — Bunker Roy

I went to a very elitist, snobbish, expensive education in India, and it almost killed me. I was all set to be a diplomat, teacher, doctor - all laid out. — Bunker Roy

We went to Ladakh ... and we asked this woman, 'What was the benefit you had from solar electricity?' And she thought for a minute and said, 'It's the first time I can see my husband's face in winter.' — Bunker Roy

In India, I'm always 'Aruna Roy's husband.' — Bunker Roy

Who is a professional? A professional is someone who has a combination of competence, confidence and belief. A water diviner is a professional. A traditional midwife is a professional. A traditional bone setter is a professional. These are professionals all over the world. You find them in any inaccessible village around the world. — Bunker Roy

Strengthen the rural areas and you will find less people migrating to urban areas. You give them opportunity, self respect & self confidence, they will never go to an urban slum. — Bunker Roy

I had a very elitist, snobbish, expensive education in India, and that almost destroyed me. — Bunker Roy

[The Barefoot College is] the only college where the teacher is the learner and the learner is the teacher. — Bunker Roy

Listen to the people on the ground. They have all the solutions in the world. — Bunker Roy

The prime minister is 12 years old. She looks after 20 goats in the morning, but she's prime minister in the evening. — Bunker Roy

You have to be a cop-out or a wash-out or a dropout to come to our college. You have to work with your hands. You have to have a dignity of labor. You have to show that you have a skill that you can offer to the community and provide a service to the community. So we started the Barefoot College, and we redefined professionalism. — Bunker Roy

We have shown that solar-electrified villages can be technically and financially self-sufficient. — Bunker Roy

You come for the money, you don't come to Barefoot College. You come for the work and the challenge, you'll come to the Barefoot College. That is where we want you to try crazy ideas. Whatever idea you have, come and try it. It doesn't matter if you fail. Battered, bruised, you start again. — Bunker Roy

Jeff Sachs has the Millennium Villages. He spends $2.5 million in one village. It's an absolutely ridiculous model, because I've said that if you gave me $2.5 million, I can train 100 grandmothers, solar electrify 100 villages - 10,000 houses - and save you 100,000 litres of kerosene. — Bunker Roy

Our job is to show how it is possible to take an illiterate woman and make her into an engineer in six months and show that she can solar-electrify a village — Bunker Roy

The Barefoot College is supposed to be a sparking off process. People are adopting it and owning it, which is really the story behind the college. — Bunker Roy