Alcan awards cash prize to ''Barefoot College''

Chennai, Dec 11 (UNI) Rajastan-based NGO, ''Barefoot College'' has been selected for Internationally acclaimed 'Alcan Prize for Sustainability' for the Year 2006 and it would receive a cash prize of Rs 4.5 crore.

The Alcan annual prize recognised NGOs, not-for-profit, and civil society organisations working to build sustainable societies around the world and the prize was managed independently by the Alcan and the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF).

It is the biggest prize of its category and it is a very good achievement by an Indian NGO. ''We are very pleased to congratulate the ''Barefoot College'', India as the winner of the third annual Alcan Prize for Sustainability,'' said Daniel Gagnier, Senior Vice President, Corporate and External Affairs, Alcan Inc.

''The Barefoot College makes a valuable contribution to India's rural and impoverished citizens by providing them with necessary and practical skills to improve their communities,'' he added.

Since 1972, ''Barefoot College'' has improved the lives of India's poorest of people by emphasising on practical knowledge and skills over paper qualifications through a learning-by-doing process of education.

''Barefoot College'' puts practical knowledge, such as how to create and manage solar power and rainwater harvesting systems, into the hands of India's rural poor so that they can build and maintain their own sustainable communities.

The NGO also addresses the issues of drinking water, female education, health and sanitation, rural unemployment, income generation, electricity and power, as well as social awareness and the conservation of ecological systems in rural communities.

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