( CNN ) -- Turning grandmothers into solar engineers is one of Sanjit `` Bunker '' Roy 's favorite jobs . Roy is the social entrepreneur and founder of the Barefoot College and has been championing a bottom-up approach to education and empowering rural poor since 1972 . It is now a global enterprise with roots in India . Roy recruits women from around the world to install and maintain solar lighting and power in their home villages . `` If you ask any solar engineer in the world , 'Can anyone make this in a village ? ' they say it 's technically impossible . And if I say a grandmother is making it who is illiterate , he ca n't believe it , it 's beyond his comprehension , '' says Roy . The United Nations estimates that around 1.5 billion people still live without electricity , and often the best and most immediate way to bring non-polluting electricity to remote regions is with solar energy . Roy certainly believes so . `` The way to go about this is not a centralized grid system , which brings in power from hundreds of miles away , '' he says . `` It is to bring in basic light right down to the level of basic household wherein they take ownership and control over that technology . '' Women are the focus for the solar power projects that the Barefoot College runs because men `` were very untrainable , '' says Roy . `` ( Men ) were restless , compulsively mobile , and they all want a certificate and the moment you give them a certificate they leave the village and go to the cities looking for jobs . `` So why not invest in women , older women , mature women , gutsy women who have roots in the village and train them . '' Coming from countries across the world , the women are trained for six months before returning home . Many of the women have previously never left their villages before . `` We were scared . We do n't even know ( our neighbor ) Rwanda ... how can we go to India ? '' says Moyoonia Olive from Democratic Republic of Congo . `` But , since everyone was interested in having electric current soon , we even convinced our husbands ! '' To overcome any language barrier , classes are taught primarily with sign language and color-coded circuits . The women learn to build and maintain a variety of solar-powered lamps and chargers . The Barefoot College `` campus '' in Tilonia , Rajasthan , is a testament to the power of solar -- everything there is powered by the sun ; food is prepared using a parabolic solar cooker , night classes are powered by solar lanterns . Roy says that the school has trained 150 grandmothers from 28 countries , electrified around 10,000 houses with solar power and saved several thousands of liters of diesel and kerosene from polluting the atmosphere . `` We have shown that solar-electrified villages can be technically and financially self-sufficient , '' says 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 . ''
Solar College in India trains women to be solar engineers . Women from across the globe train for six months to then educate their home country . Women wanting to be trained as men tend to be ` ` restless '' , says college founder .