This is the story of our school, the Rainbow School
Before we had a permanent home, we had school in a shed. A very leaky shed! We built two more like it to house 200 children. We rented this space: 4,000 rupees a month! (that is a lot)
We had two years there, including two litters of puppies. Here was the bunch from this Christmas
We had fun, even wonderful parents' meetings. Here is our local temple priest, a parent of a student.
We had lovely visitors to our shed. Googlers Jonathan Rosenberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Roy Gilbert (from, left) and Leigh Anne
Dr. Larry Brilliant, Google.Org, came for a visit
He got flowers!
But we really wanted to move out.
Construction started in 2007 (August). The Naandi Foundation "Building Model Schools" program was in charge: Thank you R.D. Bhartee!
For a long time, it was just a hole in the ground
A BIG hole.
Then the foundation pillars went in.
Dr. Brilliant and another Google.org person surveyed the foundation work.
Here are the toilet foundation bricks, super mason Johnny is teaching Leigh Anne how to do this.
Nice view!
The first floor went up
Then the second, and third.
We had our first parent's meeting in the new building in December, with three more months of work to go.
Some parents weren't so sure about the "no corporal punishment" rule. (See the sticks they gave us?) But we refused to budge!
Who wants to move in! We all do!!
In October, the contractor quit, we started building the walls with bricks ourselves. Everyone helped, including the students.
Very happy to have proper classrooms, even in a half-finished building (January 2008).
With a new contractor, the building was totally finished in April 2008! Here is is just before painting.
Nice!
We even have a little front gate, very sweet.
Here is the preschool class using the "open" classroom. It has a low wall, so the classroom is always "open" on the first floor. We also use this classroom as the community center.
Our first check from the government came during the last part of construction. All private funds were used to this point.
A new baby girl, so happy! She will be a preschooler in a few, short years.
In the open classroom, we have women's microfinance groups.
Kalpana teachers helps some of the microfinance (self-help) group ladies.
We have our government nurse, Sister Rachel, who visits.
We have adult literacy classes (and some kids, too)!
Eliya, our first special needs student. He doubled his weight under our supervision.
Here are some teachers, hard at work at a teacher meeting.
Venkatesh, the artist.
Baleshwari (far left), Alpha Girl Leader - this group of girls just ran the school. They were the queens!
Yallama, never came to school. Child laborer. We could never convince her to come to school.
Yallama - same name. She comes every day.
Student's house.
Another child laborer, this one is a goatherder (which his father, in the red turban).
Fetching the water. When the water comes on, the kids hurry out to get a few buckets full. Most Tuesday mornings, all you see are kids with wet hands and legs (water buckets are sloppy) rushing in late for school after fetching the water.
We had just enough time to build a preschool on a slim piece of land granted to us just before January 2008.
This was built in 14 days - Thank you Ismail Ghouri!
Including a tin roof and bathroom. We're working on the electricity.
The preschool uses this room. It also houses the "bridge class" which includes older students just learning to read.
Former third-standard "classroom"
Rally to get new kids to school.
Metal cabinets to keep the books safe (rats!) donated by the lovely Lion's Club of Jubilee Hills ladies.
Mid-day meal, run by the amazing Naandi Foundation (www.naandi.org)
The Naandi Foundation program mangers shepherded the whole project. THANK YOU Bhartee! And they deliver the mid-day meals. Thank you,
Another child laborer, a sister of some students. She is in charge of her hut (behind her) and doesn't want to leave it unattended in case there are thieves. We could not convince her to come to school.
Making a soccer ball out of plastic bits.
More ingenuity, using crate pieces to make a sun shade for the door.
Keeping flowers out of the reach of goats means putting them up high on walls. We learned about goats hard way. We lost our garden in 2007 after some goats scaled a wall, climbed over the roof, then jumped down into the garden.
Republic Day celebrations included reenactments of historical plays.
Thank you!
