Rainbow Primary School

Saturday morning a group of us went to volunteer at a local slum neighborhood primary school started by Leigh Anne Gilbert, wife of Roy who heads the Google office here in Hyderabad. Ismail, a friend of Google and the man who organizes all our rides, drove us there and showed us around. Upon entering the school there was a chalkboard hanging that took attendance for all the students. As we go in we are welcomed with swarms of children, shaking our hands and saying hello. It was fun being around the kids and seeing that they were spending their Saturday mornings learning rather than playing or begging on the streets. Headmistress Madam Usha told us that these children were very smart for their ages; they grab onto the resources and materials around them because they aren't given much else.

We said hello to all the classes, ranging from preschool to level 5. One of the preschoolers sang the "Hokey Pokey" for us, it was adorable. Ismail brought boxes of cookies for us to distribute -- the children performed a clapping song to thank us for bringing them the treat. All of the children loved the camera, they kept getting up from their schoolwork to get on film.

Waving "hi" to the camera

After cookies were distributed some of the children performed dances to music played off a boombox. Most of the dancers were older children, although one young girl blew us off our seats! She came onto the dancefloor really shy, but started getting into the song once the music started. We had a blast watching these kids dance and have fun, we were saying they should go on Dancing With The Stars! I'm posting a video of the dancing in my next post.

Getting her groove on!

That's us and the teachers

Holding little cards that said "Stop, children are walking"


I really liked Madam Usha because she reminded me of my grandpa. She kept pinching my cheeks just like my pa-pa :)

It was a very humbling experience, I look forward to helping out more on my weekends here in Hyderabad. I spoke with Madam Usha a few days before I went to the school, she told me that she would like to help get ALL the begging children off the street and provide them education. It's tough because the government doesn't support public schooling as they do private, so many low income children have no option but to beg. Thanks to Leigh Anne and Google, Rainbow Primary School was founded, providing education to over 250 slum neighborhood students. To learn more about the school, Click Here.

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