Bags and Desks

 The majority of Indian school children sit on the floor to study. They have an allotted space  to sit cross-legged on the floor with their satchels. The satchels are

heavy with all their text and exercise books as there is no where to leave them at school - no desk or locker. The bags soon collapse under the weight of the books, burst their locks or seams.

Little children graduate from a plastic bag to a real one!

The children are delighted when they get a new school bag. The youngest children use polythene bags and are very proud of the day when they get a real school bag.They have to take all their text and exercise books to school each day. They can't leave them anywhere at school so one sees children weighed down by heavy school bags. Even children who go to private schools can be seen sitting, spread out in rows across the playground,revising at exam times.Their satchels and bags are enormous.

Smiles at being given a new school bag
 from a sponsor in Wales. 

 Seventy five per cent of India's population is rural and they eat, sleep, work and play on the floor. Some have hard wooden beds, like tables with short legs, that are very useful for storing things underneath.  Others sleep on charpoys, an arrangement of wood and string, which is light to carry around and can be put to a variety of uses, from stretchers to drying the grain.

The great event last week was the arrival of a lorry load of school 'desks'.

They are more like long thin tables, as there is no storage space in them, but they come with benches to sit on.

A private school in Visakhapatnam had donated the desks to Victor.





 They need some repairs and will have to be varnished but this can be done for less than £20.
The thirty desks will be shared out between Prem Nivas, Shanti Nivas and the Rainbow Boy's home.

The children insisted on posing for photos.