Social entrepreneur of the year: A place for learning & unlearning

Barefoot College works with local communities and individuals in 78 countries to skill rural women

Business Standard Corporate Social Responsibility Awards 2016

For Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy, who turns 72 this August, a statement by the Father of the Nation — “live simply so that others may simply live” — has gone beyond a vision statement for his social enterprise, Barefoot College, a place that skills rural women and communities to be self-reliant and sustainable. Over the past four decades, Roy has lived the dream that Mahatma Gandhi had, of creating self-sustaining village communities — not only in India, but in 77 other countries — across 1,300 villages.

Following a chance visit to a